Doctors are the people we turn to in our darkest moments. We trust them with our lives. But what does that stress do to a person?

What does it take to confront death, disease, distress and suffering every day? To work in a healthcare system stretched to breaking point? To make decisions that will change lives – or possibly end them? And how do doctors cope with their own questions and fears, when they are expected to have all the answers?

Caroline Elton is a psychologist who, for two decades, has specialised in helping doctors: the obstetrician whose own fertility treatment failed; the...