War Doctor Surgery on the Front Line:

by David Nott

Our anxiety—for who is not anxious when they go to see a doctor?—has us invest them with supernatural powers and the highest moral standards, as a way of reducing our fear. It is inevitable that we are often disappointed—doctors are only human, and life is still a fatal condition.

altruism and egotism are two sides of the same coin and reflect our intensely social natures as human beings. We need other people, and we need to be needed. We can find intense fulfillment in putting the lives of others ahead of our own (as we do with our own children), and most of us long for a cause, even if it is only to try to stave off ecological disaster by feeding the few remaining sparrows in our backyard.

You could not operate on patients if you yourself actually felt what they were feeling. Surgeons, obviously, do not suffer from this problem—though I do not know whether this is from lack of empathy or because the excitement of operating enables them to switch off their empathy when necessary (and in some cases permanently).