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My job as a physician is to make sure I have provided my patients with the best options to make the decisions that affect their lives.

As a physician, I understand how important it is to collect data on people so we can understand what's happening with them. I will be in the position to help enable that knowledge.

Doctors and patients need as much data as possible to make an informed decision about what treatment is best.

I always think, medically... you really have to be your advocate. You have to be able to back up everything that you're feeling with some information and protect yourself through the world of hospitals and doctors' offices, so the more information the better.

Doctors have an ethical duty to follow the practices and standards of care.

Value in medicine depends on information - as I said in 'Let Patients Help,' 'People perform better when they're informed better.' It follows that to make patients and families more effective in care, they need to know more.

I'm trying to knock the medical profession into accepting its responsibilities, and those responsibilities include assisting their patients with death.

The patient's autonomy always, always should be respected, even if it is absolutely contrary - the decision is contrary to best medical advice and what the physician wants.

What I learned from my work as a physician is that even with the most complicated patients, the most complicated problems, you've got to look hard to find every piece of data and evidence that you can to improve your decision-making. Medicine has taught me to be very much evidence-based and data-driven in making decisions.

I have an obligation to use what I know to try to bring real, usable medical science to every doctor and bedside and patient.