Growing Conflicted

Still working on Maass's chapter on Inner Conflict (Chapter 3), and in looking back at the work I did for Chapter 2 (Multidimensional Characters) I see now that identifying those extra character dimensions is a good chunk of the work toward creating (but not, darn it, solving) internal struggles for the characters.  For example, in the wip, the hero's primary trait is that he's a rescuer.  He sees himself as the person who swoops in and takes care of things for those who can't.  He's a doctor, as well, which plays right into that.  Rescuer types often become EMTs, doctors, etc.

The opposite of that would be to throw someone to the wolves, a very villainous trait and one I don't think that my hero has.  Still, I wrote a scene with him doing something like that just to see what would happen.  Very interesting.

But what would happen if someone came along who he could not save?  Someone with cancer, or (in this instance) a mental illness that was simply beyond the medicine of the times to treat?  How would that challenge him as a person?  As a doctor? 

So let's hear it.  Pick one of your characters and tell me his or her defining quality, as Maass puts it.  What's the one trait someone would use to describe your character, as in "he's honest" or "she's very direct".  Now, what's the opposite of that, and how would you show some growth from one toward the other, even if not all the way there?  Your honest hero might not have to become a pathological liar, but what would test his honesty?  And would there be a time when he could actually tell a lie to achieve some greater goal?