In the 1990s when I started medical school, nobody warned me how my job was going to hurt me emotionally. Maybe it’s better they didn’t, as I might have been scared away. 

I must admit, there were a few omens I foolishly ignored early on. Still, I could not have dreamed that one day, like a human rain barrel, I would become a repository for an Appalachian avalanche of pain and suffering. Today, as a…