Tan Cheng Bock Quotes

Does anyone really go into nursing intending to be apathetic, cold and removed from suffering? I find that very difficult to believe.

As I've met clinicians in my travels, time after time I've been inspired to hear why people went into medicine: to apply their way-above-average minds (and hearts) to work that's beyond most people's capacity, and perhaps save a few lives.

I grew up caring about people and I would say again, that's what made me who I am. I became a doctor for what I like to call "healthy reasons." Not because I'm fascinated by the human body or want to understand death, but I like people and I want to help them. That also became my problem, because I couldn't help everyone, I couldn't fix everyone.

I am a doctor - it's a profession that may be considered a special mission, a devotion. It calls for involvement, respect and willingness to help all other people.

I really admire medical people. They have a great sense of humour, and they just have to get on with it.

When you think in terms of public service, I heard so much about what Mother Theresa had done in her life. And I was fortunate enough to get a chance to meet her and talk to her a lot about what motivates her and what drives her. And that, to me, is a person that really is an extraordinary role model.

How can you regret helping a suffering patient?

My sister is a nurse and saves people's lives.

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

What President Bush has done speaks more than words about his feeling of compassion and commitment to people.

It takes lives to save lives.

I care. I care about it all. It takes too much energy not to care.

When medical students focus on helping others, they're able to weather the slings and arrows of long hours and devastating health outcomes: they know their colleagues and patients are depending on them.

Once we as doctors are entrusted with the well-being of our patients and their children, it is our duty to take action, to be selfless, and fulfill our obligation to the service of others. I did so willingly, and it brought me great joy throughout my professional career. However, I always had a desire to do more.

A doctor, like anyone else who has to deal with human beings, each of them unique, cannot be a scientist; he is either, like the surgeon, a craftsman, or, like the physician and the psychologist, an artist. This means that in order to be a good doctor a man must also have a good character, that is to say, whatever weaknesses and foibles he may have, he must love his fellow human beings in the concrete and desire their good before his own.

Ah! what a divine religion might be found out if charity were really made the principle of it instead of faith.

Great people create great acts of kindness.

… The most worthy calling in life is that in which man can serve best his fellow man. … The noblest aim in life is to strive to live to make other lives better and happier.

We are only fully alive when we're helping others

The true measure of a man is not his intelligence or how high he rises in this freak establishment. No, the true measure of a man is this: how quickly can he respond to the needs of others and how much of himself he can give.

If everyone practiced cherishing others, many of the major problems of the world would be solved in a few years.

I choose to identify with the underprivileged, I choose to give my life for the hungry, I choose to give my life for those who have been left out of the sunlight of opportunity . . . this is the way I'm going. If it means suffering, I'm going that way. If it means dying for them, I'm going that way, because I heard a voice saying DO SOMETHING FOR OTHERS.

We hear all around us about practical religion, and analysing all that, we find that it can be brought down to one conception - charity to our fellow beings.

When I treat other people with kindness and love, it is part of my way of paying my debt to God and the world for the privilege of living on this planet.

I grew up with a real appreciation about just how wonderful and intimate the relationship is between a doctor and a patient was and the sense that this was a noble profession.