Lecture October 5, 1988
16/18
Remarks by C. Everett Koop, MD, ScD
Surgeon General of the U.S. Public Health Service
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Presented to the Centennial of the University of Minnesota Medical School
Minneapolis, Minnesota
October 5, 1988
I began with suitable remarks for an opportunity such as this, sharing in the centennial of a great institution. I then acknowledged that I was traveling with Minnesota's Senior Senator, Dave Durenberger and made known his interest in raising the health status of all Americans. He was the senator we in the public health world counted "on our side". I also acknowledged my exposure to Minnesotans over the past 2 days as we discussed key matters of public health in 6 cities. Dave Durenberger was running for the Senate again and although I wasn't on the stump touting him as a politician, I did bring health messages every place where he stopped for whatever political gain it might have  brought him.
I then reviewed the major killers of mankind in the past century and how we responded to them as a nation and spoke of the outpouring of scientific knowledge in new fields such as psychology, virology, genetics, toxicology and so on. I them said I would be discussing three areas in which we are bound to see some changes and for which we ought to make some preparation, at least intellectually. These areas were first, the relationship between technology and health care, second, the change in the relationship between the public and the health care system itself, and finally, the issue of health, community values, and public support.
This was all material that I presented from a slightly different point of view than had been done previously and with a twist for Minnesotans. I will not go into greater detail because it would be repetitious of my remarks to the Joint Economic Committee in Washington, DC, on the 23rd of June and my remarks presented to the National American College of Legal Medicine in Washington, DC, on the 22nd of July.