You don’t have to be happy to do your job well, writes Joe who is the ‘world’s most popular blogging anesthesiologist’:

“I got through medical school only by riding a combination of fear, uncertainty and well-–concealed rage at the whole process.

I left general practice after two years because I was bored to tears and devastated each night when I got home, a combination of emotional fatigue and (short-–term, I hope) brain damage resulting from listening to 30 depressed people a day tell me the somatic manifestations of their misery.

But guess what?

Every single practice I worked at during that two-–year run-–up to beginning my anesthesiology residency (which I absolutely loved every minute of, by the way) begged me to stay and become full-–time.

They loved me.”