In many ways, the effort to study philosophy was my rebellion away from medicine. I'm the son of two Indian immigrant physicians, so the natural path for me would have been to become a doctor. I ended up doing the master's degree at Oxford in politics, philosophy, and economics while already having a seat in medical school. I was keeping that as my escape hatch. But my hope was that I might become a philosopher or something else entirely.

What is the alternative to understanding the complexity of the world?

When [disease] can't be stopped, that's where we become lost.

People underestimate the importance of dilligence as a virtue. No doubt it has something to do with how supremely mundane it seems. It is defined as "the constant and earnest effort to accomplish what is undertaken."... Understood, however, as the prerequisite of great accomplishment, diligence stands as one of the most difficult challenges facing any group of people who take on tasks of risk and consequence. It sets a high, seemingly impossible, expectation for performance and human behavior.

Better is possible. It does not take genius. It takes diligence. It takes moral clarity. It takes ingenuity. And above all, it takes a willingness to try.

If we took away the ability to put defibrillators in people in their last years, people would be shouting in the streets.

These are folks that keep people out of hospitals, out of emergency rooms, out of nursing homes. And not only that, they help people achieve more fulfilling lives.