I wish medical schools helped us to analyze our healthy and unhealthy reasons for becoming doctors.
I truly feel the best doctors are ones who are criticized by nurses, patients and family. They do not make excuses and learn from their mistakes.
When one teenager dying of cystic fibrosis asked me, 'Why am I different?' I answered, 'Tony, because it makes you beautiful.' He loved my answer because he knew full well how much he had done for the world and that he would be immortal through his love and the fund raising of those who knew him hoping to find a cure for cystic fibrosis.
I have learned to become not an M.D. but a 'C.D.' for the wounded people I meet. Yes, a 'Chosen Dad' who may not like their behavior but loves and reparents them and helps them to heal their lives and find self-worth and self-esteem and save their lives.
I see people who die a few minutes after a doctor tells them there is no hope of a cure. They give up and go. Others get angry and find joy in proving the doctor wrong. Something within them is challenged and hopeful. Hope is the divine motivator.
There is survival behavior, and doctors need to learn from patients who do not die when they are supposed to, instead of saying, 'You're doing very well, so keep doing whatever you are doing.' They should be asking what their patient is doing and pass the information to other patients.
When my body gets to the point where I can no longer function or feel gratitude, then I'll leave it and become grateful again. But until then, I will appreciate what I have and not whine about what I don't have. I will feel blessed by life and the opportunity to help others see that they are blessed, too.
Part of my evolution has been to learn how painful most people's childhoods are. They grow up not liking themselves, not loving themselves. Ask people if they were lovable the minute they were born, and watch them sit back and have to think about it. One lady said, 'I suppose so.' That's painful.
We participate and are responsible for a lot of the things that happen to us. If you hate your job, you are much more likely to get sick and die at a younger age than someone who's happy at work and has a nice family life and is mentally well adjusted.
I think some people do want to die, and they will get a disease. There are people who know their lives are so troubled, and their bodies are getting them out of here.
What I try to get physically healthy people to understand is that they're going to die someday. There is no way out. And dying isn't failure, but not living is, so make use of your time. Don't keeping waiting.
When your heart speaks to you about what you need to do to sustain life on this planet, listen to it, make a difference, and be an inspiration for generations to come. Be inspired by people like Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Christopher Reeve, Albert Schweitzer, Helen Keller, and many others.
One of the best ways to change is to act as if you are the person you want to become. When you behave as if you are a different person, you change on a very basic level - even your physiology changes. When actors and actresses perform, their body chemistry is altered by the roles they play.
I decided to become a surgeon named Bernie who writes books and gives seminars to teach people what he has learned and is still learning about how to deal with life's difficulties.
A surgeon is surrounded by people who are sick, discouraged, afraid, embittered, dying - but also courageous, loving, wise, compassionate and alive.
