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.

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.

In one study, old people assigned to a geriatrics team stayed independent for far longer, and were admitted to the hospital less.

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

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

The striking thing is that WHO doesn't really have the authority to do any of this. It can't tell governments what to do. It hires no vaccinators, distributes no vaccine. It is a small Geneva bureaucracy run by several hundred international delegates whose annual votes tell the organization what to do but not how to do it.…The only substantial resource that WHO has cultivated is information and expertise.

I chose surgery because I thought that perhaps this would make me more like the kind of person I wanted to be.