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.

We need to accept the seemingly obvious fact that a toxic environment can make people sick and that no amount of medical intervention can protect us. The health care community must become a powerful political lobby for environmental policy and legislation.

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.

We can't get to the $4 trillion in savings that we need by just cutting the 12 percent of the budget that pays for things like medical research and education funding and food inspectors and the weather service. And we can't just do it by making seniors pay more for Medicare.

The medical literature tells us that the most effective ways to reduce the risk of heart disease cancer stroke diabetes Alzheimer's and many more problems are through healthy diet and exercise. Our bodies have evolved to move yet we now use the energy in oil instead of muscles to do our work.

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

I went to medical school because I wanted to ask the big questions. Do we have a soul? Does God exist? What happens after death?

The Google algorithm was a significant development. I've had thank-you emails from people whose lives have been saved by information on a medical website or who have found the love of their life on a dating website.

When I was born in 1970 with a rare genetic disorder called spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita (SED) medical science wasn't what it is today and my mum and dad were treated terribly by the medical profession.

My dad's a doctor and when I was 8 I went to one of his medical conferences where they were demonstrating laser surgery on a chicken. I was so mad that a chicken had to die I never ate meat again.