The Affordable Care Act also offered protections that allow for preexisting conditions, as people know, that you're provided coverage and you can maintain steady coverage. And that's an important part of being able to stay in care and do better over the long run.

Arriving at an acceptance of one's mortality is a process, not an epiphany.

Go back to the '30s, '40s, '50s, and it was the discovery of heroic interventions, the ability to cure people with penicillin or do an operation to stop disease that was what saved the day. Primary care physicians couldn't do all that much that really demonstrated a difference. The people who control and work with you to control your blood pressure, they're not rewarded for doing that or to be innovative about doing that. So, the result is half of Americans have uncontrolled high blood pressure, despite seeing clinicians.

When we lived in a society where we had large families that lived together, especially in agricultural societies like my grandfather and father grew up in, the result is you always had family around to take care of you.

Just using a checklist requires [doctors] to embrace different values from ones we've had, like humility, discipline, teamwork.

No one teaches you how to think about money in medical school or residency. Yet, from the moment you start practicing, you must think about it. You must consider what is covered for a patient and what is not.

You may not control life's circumstances, but getting to be the author of your life means getting to control what you do with them.