I've had opportunities before to run for office - the Republicans recruited me when I was surgeon general, to run for Congress, to run against Gov. Napolitano. But I didn't feel it was my calling... I felt, 'Well, I'm flattered, but I really would rather stay and be the doctor of the nation and stay as surgeon general.'

I used to be a real doctor. Now I just play one on TV.

As 17th U.S. Surgeon General, I was privileged to serve as the nation's doctor. I focused much of my time on promoting proven programs and individual steps that lead to good health.

As a young surgeon in training at the University of California San Francisco General Hospital in the early '80s, my colleagues and I were inundated with an epidemic of young men with fevers, rashes, swollen lymph nodes and eventually death.

I see good ideas on the Republican side as well as the Democratic side. You have to return civility and statesmanship to governance. If you don't do that, it doesn't matter what portfolio of issue you're pushing, nothing is going to get done.

I really think the most important thing I do is to protect the dignity and the integrity of the Office of the Surgeon General.

As a father, physician and nurse, I have a special place in my heart for children, and I know the brief window of opportunity we have to teach them simple lessons that can lead to a lifetime of good health.