I can certainly imagine having meaningful work that's the purpose of life, not just a source of funding for other activities. It's definitely not the case for m

I can certainly imagine having meaningful work that's the purpose of life, not just a source of funding for other activities. It's definitely not the case for many (probably most) people, but it is that way for some; there's probably a correlation with "high-status" jobs. For the OP example of a doctor, it's quite plausible that their social and ethical goal in life is healing people and their home life is just there to support their work; instead of wanting to (for example) play golf and having to heal people for money to support that. Or for example, did Feynman work on physics in order to "live" or was that work a goal in itself?