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“King: Wasn’t it hard, though, even though I know you were taking people out of pain, wasn’t it hard for a doctor who takes that oath to administer life to help people die?

Kevorkian: Well, it’s not to help them die. See, everyone’s got this backwards. It’s to relieve them of their intolerable and unending suffering. The patient’s wish – see, that’s not my wish. And that’s what… Hippocrates says. He says you are the servant of the patient. The servant. But doctors today consider themselves, you know, the overlord of the patient. They’ve got that twisted backwards.

So I’ve got to do what the patient requires. So I always felt that their wish comes first, no matter what.”

June 4, 2007