The question that forms the title is an intimately human one. Its careful formulation through this book will strike a particular chord with healthcare workers the world over, but is equally geared towards those in emotionally demanding roles, professional affiliations notwithstanding.

The first-person narration makes this book feel like both a memoir and a dialogue. It begins with a simple premise – at the height of the pandemic, a psychiatrist who works largely with healthcare workers is considering how she feels.

Through her, we hear the stories of an oncology nurse redeployed to an intensive care unit, a doctor in training who is struggling at work, an emergency room attending who is questioning the practices passed down as medical culture, a pre-med student gearing up for her medical school applications and the author herself, who shares her commentary, experiences and internal monologue at key moments.

The process is honest, vulnerable, humorous and somehow immensely relatable. It is an account that will feel like a long-overdue catch-up in an old friend’s living room. It does not take itself too seriously, but contemporaneously conveys the significance of the topics discussed without pulling any punches.

We see through the author’s eyes how stigma forms a barrier to accessing mental healthcare, and can even come from within healthcare, creating a unique hurdle specific to healthcare workers. It discusses the impact of the day-to-day risks that essential frontline workers are expected to take, regardless of the potential for serious harm.

There is also an unfortunately realistic assessment of medical culture in the recent past, when empathy was treated as a barrier to being a successful doctor. In words specific to healthcare workers but feelings common to us all, we see where and how professional distance becomes detachment, compartmentalisation becomes dissociation and tiredness becomes burnout.

The simplicity with which Jessi Gold articulates complexity is evocative, which is exactly why her book can get away with asking us a question in the title – it gives us all the tools to answer it.