Total devotion can mask illness
Limitless commitment to others can grow partly out of the carer's own instability, such as manic depression. A life held up as exemplary for its devotion may be called fortunate only with irony.
Recognizing those illness estranges
Illness and the fear of death can make people unrecognizable to themselves. Part of a healer's work is to keep seeing and acknowledging the whole person when the patient can no longer do so.
The doctor as clerk of record
A doctor who lives among patients for years does more than hand out cures. He becomes the keeper of the community's memories, a witness who records the lives he serves. This part of care cannot be measured, so performance targets and dramatic treatments easily push it aside.
Fortune is work that justifies life
By society's poor standards, a person is fortunate when they believe their work justifies their life, as an artist does. That happens most when the work fully occupies them and the line between life and job blurs.