As a medical doctor it is my duty to evaluate the situation with as much data as I can gather and as much expertise as I have and as much experience as I have to determine whether or not the wish of the patient is medically justified.

With patient and firm determination I am going to press on for jobs. I'm going to press on for equality. I'm going to press on for the sake of our children. I'm going to press on for the sake of all those families who are struggling right now. I don't have time to feel sorry for myself. I don't have time to complain. I am going to press on.

I want to see far more decisions taken far closer to the patients the passengers and the pupils. Far more power for locally and regionally elected politicians who understand best the needs of their areas. And far more say too for the dedicated staff at all levels in health and education.

I'm sure I am impatient sometimes. I sure do get angry sometimes. I think it's outrageous how hard it is to get this country to feed its children and to take care of its children to give them a decent education.

The dilemma of modern medicine and the underlying central flaw in medical education and most of all in the training of interns is the irresistible drive to do something anything. It is expected by patients and too often agreed to by their doctors in the face of ignorance.

I weighed 193 pounds and had three chins. I couldn't get up before 9 a.m. and never saw patients before 10. I decided to go on a diet.

I'm trying to knock the medical profession into accepting its responsibilities and those responsibilities include assisting their patients with death.

Those who have the strength and the love to sit with a dying patient in the silence that goes beyond words will know that this moment is neither frightening nor painful but a peaceful cessation of the functioning of the body.

Not much shocked me. You know I worked in a home for Alzheimer's patients and my dad used to be really into murders and stuff so I saw dead bodies. It desensitised me to a lot of things.

We learned to be patient observers like the owl. We learned cleverness from the crow and courage from the jay who will attack an owl ten times its size to drive it off its territory. But above all of them ranked the chickadee because of its indomitable spirit.