How would you feel being assigned a patient who required a difficult emergency surgery for which you won't collect any income?

"Within every demographic are the indigent, and they have a right to expect the same treatment as any higher socioeconomic group; that is, just because patients may be indigent, that shouldn't equate to being underserved, and it is my responsibility to make sure of that ."

All doctors do a lot of work for fee. It's just part of the profession, so your interviewer expects professionalism in your answer. You don't have to say that the money means nothing to you, because that's not true; but you should have a sensibility of medicine as 'the noble profession.'

"I have to say that getting paid is my way to make a living, but the nature of emergency surgery is to treat first and everything else second. And if that means there is no second anything, including income, it's just part of the specialty. Accepting being a surgeon is accepting that."