I would take us all back a thousand years, when our ancestors lived in small villages and there was always a healer in that village—and his job wasn’… - Mehmet Oz

I’ve always felt that, when I looked at my tombstone, it shouldn’t say, ‘Mehmet Oz banged out 10,000 open-heart operations.’ I’ve probably done 5,000. Am I any better at it than 10,000? It’s just a different number on the tombstone.

There was a kid in front of me who was 10. My dad, just to pass the time, said, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ The kid said, ‘I don’t know, I’m 10.’ My father waited until he was out of earshot and said: ‘I never want you to tell me that if I ask you that question. I never want you tell me you don’t know. It’s O.K. if you change your mind. But I never want you not to have a vision of what you want to be.' I told him that day that I wanted to be a doctor. And I never changed my mind.

The great thing about America is that you can hold on to whatever heritage you come from. We celebrate the different cultures, so I had the privilege, as the son of immigrant parents, to grow up American while staying deeply in touch with my Turkish roots. I have a great deal of family back in Turkey, I lived there for a period as a boy and I served in the Turkish military, which is compulsory for dual citizenship.