Ezekiel Emanuel Quotes

Physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia have been profound ethical issues confronting doctors since the birth of Western medicine, more than 2,000 years ago.

Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others

Medical school education and post graduate education emphasize thoroughness.

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.

I'm the son of a pediatrician, and I do believe that the most important resource we have is our kids. And I think the most important thing for America's future is to invest more in our children.

Childhood vaccines are one of the great triumphs of modern medicine. Indeed, parents whose children are vaccinated no longer have to worry about their child's death or disability from whooping cough, polio, diphtheria, hepatitis, or a host of other infections.

Vaccines are the most cost-effective health care interventions there are. A dollar spent on a childhood vaccination not only helps save a life, but greatly reduces spending on future healthcare.

When implemented, the Complete Lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated... The Complete Lives system justifies preference to younger people because of priority to the worst-off rather than instrumental value.

Americans tend to endorse the use of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia when the question is abstract and hypothetical.

Services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.

By establishing a social policy that keeps physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia illegal but recognizes exceptions, we would adopt the correct moral view: the onus of proving that everything had been tried and that the motivation and rationale were convincing would rest on those who wanted to end a life.

Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving quality are merely ‘lipstick’ cost control, more for show and public relations than for true change... Savings will require changing how doctors think about their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, “as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others.

My father always has been attractive because of his energy, warmth, charm, and talent for finding some connection with people from all cultures and walks of life. He rarely observed social formalities and niceties - something he has passed on to his boys.

Having been an oncologist and having cared for scores, if not hundreds, of dying patients, when you don't have a treatment that can shrink the tumor and the patient will die, it's a very difficult conversation. It's emotionally draining.

Reasoning based on cost has been strenuously resisted; it violated the Hippocratic Oath, was associated with rationing, and derided as putting a price on life... Indeed, many physicians were willing to lie to get patients what they needed from insurance companies that were trying to hold down costs.

An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.

Anyone who lives in Washington and has an official position viscerally understands the cost of a lack of privacy. Every dinner - especially ones with a journalist in attendance - is preceded by the mandatory, 'This is off the record.' But everyone also knows, nothing is really 'off the record.

We all focus on health care and diabetes and heart disease but there's all sorts of things like the simple fact that, you know, heavier people, transportation is more, so there's more spent on gasoline, more on jet fuel, people have had to change the size of doorways, the size of chairs on airplanes and at sports stadiums, so there's a lot of hidden costs as well to the increasing girth of Americans.

The president recognizes that funding global health is good for national security, domestic health and global diplomacy. Consequently, President Obama has steadily increased funding for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, which was created by President Bush and has strong bipartisan support.

I am not sure precisely why we need to have privacy, but everyone knows for sure that we need to relax and not have to put on our social, outwardly looking face all of the time.

We're all on a continuous journey to try and fix our mistakes and flaws. And, believe me, I've got plenty of them.

I guess, as an Emanuel, I have a voice that carries.

We don't have enough solid organs for transplantation; not enough kidneys, livers, hearts, lungs. When you get a liver and you have three people who need it, who should get it? We tried to come up with an ethically defensible answer. Because we have to choose.

We had a big controversy in the United States when there was a limited number of dialysis machines. In Seattle, they appointed what they called a 'God committee' to choose who should get it, and that committee was eventually abandoned. Society ended up paying the whole bill for dialysis instead of having people make those decisions.

The situation around Terri Schiavo was a deeply held conflict over what to do if someone isn't going to return to consciousness or competence. Who will decide? Even there, where we had settled legal rules, we still had disagreement. We're torn about these things.

Over his illustrious career, John Harris has explored the most challenging bioethical questions with insight, engaging wit, and eloquence. In Enhancing Evolution, Harris does it again. He argues that it is not just an option but an obligation for people to use available biomedical technologies to enhance their own--and their children's--physical and mental abilities. Harris rightly deserves his reputation for fearlessly following his ethical arguments wherever they lead.

You have the quality of your work and the integrity with which you do it.

Guilt. It comes naturally to me as a Jew and a Liberal.

When my children were growing up, we began every family meal - which included breakfast and dinner every day - with a prayer. We are Jewish and so it was the prayer over bread, when we were having bread, or the catch-all prayer for everything when we weren't.