Our reluctance to honestly examine the experience of aging and dying has increased the harm we inflict on people and denied them the basic comforts they most need.

Culture matters. Of course, if physicians are rewarded or penalized for their service and results, the culture will change. But the key values we doctors are being pressed to embrace are humility, teamwork, and discipline.

We always hope for the easy fix: the one simple change that will erase a problem in a stroke. But few things in life work this way. Instead, success requires making a hundred small steps go right - one after the other, no slipups, no goofs, everyone pitching in.

If the conversation people think is coming is the 'death panel' conversation, that's a total failure.

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.

Courage is strength in the face of knowledge of what is to be feared or hoped. Wisdom is prudent strength.

The definition of what it means to be dying has changed radically. We are able to extend people's lives considerably, including sometimes, good days.