If our nation is to rebuild opportunity for future generations, it will require our elected leaders to realize that their responsibility lies not with their political party, but rather with the American people that they have been chosen to represent.
I love the opportunity to help my patients, to work with them to find the best course of action to get them healthy and to give them the information they need to stay healthy.
When I took the Hippocratic oath and was effectively 'sworn in' as a doctor, I took the same vow that doctors have taken for generations. Patient autonomy is core to this oath.
Just like you can't cure a patient without listening to what he's feeling, you can't cure a nation without hearing what the people are really asking for.
Our nation is built upon a history of immigration, dating back to our first pioneers, the Pilgrims. For more than three centuries, we have welcomed generations of immigrants to our melting pot of hyphenated America: British-Americans; Italian-Americans; Irish-Americans; Jewish-Americans; Mexican-Americans; Chinese-Americans; Indian-Americans.
I hope I'll have the opportunity to debate how we reform and update our immigration system. I will relate my own story and that of the countless immigrants whose American Dream stories have helped build our country into the greatest nation in the world.
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.