A pioneer in kidney transplantation in Canada in the late 1950s, Dr. John Dossetor was faced with making many ethical decisions in his ground-breaking research and practice in nephrology so it was with much personal experience that he embraced the study of medical ethics in his later years. His medical career spans decades of change as modern technology made possible more complex treatment situations. His observations on his own distinguished career in medicine from his perspective as a bioethicist are instructive and informative.