Dr John McCormack runs a GP practice in the Connemara Gaeltacht and until last month worked 273 hours per fortnight
A house call drive in daylight and a blue sky with not a sinner as far as the eye can see is a genuine tonic. Rosmuc, Connemara is a special place and I feel lucky to be able to work here.
As a GP based here for the past two-and-a-half years, my hours are hectic.
While I work 9-5 based on appointments in the surgery, I try to fit my house calls in between consultations.
Until last month, I was on call every night and every second weekend - a total of 273 hours per fortnight.
It left me very psychologically drained and close to burnout. I now share out-of-hours cover with a doctor from a nearby area and the new system is like a gust of fresh air as I get the time to be a daddy and husband.
Being a single-handed GP, the buck stops with me and there are no layers of bureaucracy as exists in hospitals.
The amount of business issues is intimidating; P35 forms still scare me and that is why Norah, as practice manager, absolves me of all these duties so I can just be a doctor.
In the Gaeltacht area, there is a very low population density within a large area but we are kept busy due to an ageing, isolated population.
I cover an area of about 25 miles but when I am on call, this increases to an area approximately the size of Co Louth.
Geography is more of a problem than age and one of my patients takes two bicycle trips and rows two miles to get to the surgery and then faces the same on the way home - he is the fittest 70-year-old man I have ever met!
Some of my patients speak only Irish and I've had to brush up fast on those cúpla focal in order to establish any kind of rapport with them.
A part of me is thrilled that I have a chance to flex my spoken Irish on a daily basis in a natural setting.
As the first port of call in an emergency, I see pretty much all kinds of illness.
Depression is a big problem but not much more so than in urban areas.
Long dark evenings and social isolation take their toll but what is more of a problem is that we do not have enough young and middle-aged people to help care for our elderly at home.
Alcohol abuse does rear its ugly head and presents in many different ways but thankfully the use of poitin is in decline.
One of my most unusual cases was where a middle-aged man walked in with a high temperature and a rash and it was a case of Stevens Johnson's Syndrome. It is very rare and potentially life threatening and I don't think I will see another case in my working life.
However, thankfully my life is a little more mundane than that of my colleague, Dr Broderick on the Aran Islands, who had to give an epidural anaesthetic to a cow whose womb turned inside out after delivering a calf and replace the womb, all the time under telephone instruction from the vet on the mainland.
The best thing about my job is the day-to-day satisfaction combined with the autonomy of being self-employed and in control - to a degree - of my work life destiny.
Every day is something new and I get a continuous buzz out of that.
To paraphrase Forrest Gump, each surgery 'is like a box of chocolates - you never know what you gonna get".
(Interview by Niamh Kavanagh)