Nigel Cameron is a historian and ethicist.

How DrKoop.com rose and fell: the untold story behind the Surgeon General’s startup

Social media
April 19, 2025

An excerpt from Dr. Koop: The Many Lives of the Surgeon General.

“I’ve had two major messages that I’ve tried to get out to the public all my professional life,” Koop proclaimed. “One is to take charge of your own health. The other is that there is no prescription I can give you that is more valuable than knowledge … I’ve tried the non-profit world, …

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How DrKoop.com rose and fell: the untold story behind the Surgeon General’s startup

C. Everett Koop takes the lead, seeking specialty recognition

Policy
April 11, 2025

An excerpt from Dr. Koop: The Many Lives of the Surgeon General.

“I was the salesman for pediatric surgery. I have the knack of talking to an audience and convincing [them] about what I’m saying is true.”
– CEK

The early 1950s witnessed an extraordinary burst of professional activity on the part of the young surgeon, still in his 30s, as the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) …

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C. Everett Koop takes the lead, seeking specialty recognition

C. Everett Koop meets the giants of pediatric surgery: Ladd and Gross

Physician
April 5, 2025

An excerpt from Dr. Koop: The Many Lives of the Surgeon General.

In spring of 1946 the young Koop was sent to Boston for several months to spend time with the giants of the nascent field of pediatric surgery, William E. Ladd (1880–1967), and his trainee and successor Robert Gross (1905–1988). In his survey of the history of the discipline, Judson Randolph …

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C. Everett Koop meets the giants of pediatric surgery: Ladd and Gross

C. Everett Koop’s fearless fight against the tobacco industry

Policy
March 29, 2025

An excerpt from Dr. Koop: The Many Lives of the Surgeon General.

“I have learned that, when an idea’s time has come—and it is on your watch—you must seize the moment.”
– CEK, Glasgow speech

It would take C. Everett Koop, M.D., Sc.D., just an hour—one very well-prepared hour—to overturn nine months of obloquy and ridicule. In the process, he re-ordered the public face of …

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C. Everett Koop’s fearless fight against the tobacco industry