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If I'm at the front line and refuse to treat a patient, it's considered a crime. As a physician, this is my oath. I'm going to treat everyone regardless.

Patient autonomy is paramount to the oath that we take when we enter the profession of medicine. That is why I am appalled when the federal government gets between my patients and their right to the full range of medical information and complete access to health care.

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

Patients who are being kept alive by technology and want to end their lives already have a recognized constitutional right to stop any and all medical interventions, from respirators to antibiotics. They do not need physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia.

The physician's duty is not to stave off death or return patients to their old lives, but to take into our arms a patient and family whose lives have disintegrated and work until they can stand back up and face - and make sense of - their own existence.

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.

Nineteen percent of doctors say that they'd be able to give their patients a lethal injection. But they also went on to say that the patient would have to be really, really behind on payments.

Ethically, I think pretty much every code of ethics for doctors suggests that they should not be in an interrogation room, particularly if there's anything coercive or abusive going on.

You just can't take the doctor out of you.