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.

A smartphone links patients' bodies and doctors' computers which in turn are connected to the Internet which in turn is connected to any smartphone anywhere. The new devices could put the management of an individual's internal organs in the hands of every hacker online scammer and digital vandal on Earth.

Smartphones can relay patients' data to hospital computers in a continuous stream. Doctors can alter treatment regimens remotely instead of making patients come in for a visit.

Nurses serve their patients in the most important capacities. We know that they serve as our first lines of communication when something goes wrong or when we are concerned about health.

This life is a hospital in which every patient is possessed with a desire to change his bed.

A lot of people get impatient with the pace of change.

In my business if I get too close to you and you die it hurts me. And so you develop a natural inclination not to be close to the patient so that if things don't work out ideally you can still get up the next day and care for the next patient.

Prescription: A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.

I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together again and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken - and I'd rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived.

I am not a perfect servant. I am a public servant doing my best against the odds. As I develop and serve be patient. God is not finished with me yet.