AN ideal death," says Dr Kashyap Patel at the end of a 45-minute conversation, over the phone from South Carolina, "is when one is surrounded by family, nobody is crying that you haven-t had a full life, you have done everything you could do and have no regrets. You have lived life to the fullest… My father-s death was exactly like that."

Dr Patel is an Indian born oncologist, who practiced at Mumbai-s KEM Hospital in the early -90s—interestingly, as he juggled a journalism career with the Indian Express in the evenings—moving on to the UK and then the US. Currently, he is the vice president for the Community Oncology Alliance, chairman of Clinical Affairs for the Association of Community Cancer Centers, and he runs the Carolina Blood and Cancer Care Associates.