C. Everett Koop

Koop was born in Brooklyn, New York, the only child of John Everett Koop (1883–1972), a banker and descendant of 17th-century Dutch settlers, and Helen (née Apel) Koop (1894–1970).

He attended and graduated from Flatbush School.

Charles Everett Koop (October 14, 1916 – February 25, 2013) was an American pediatric surgeon and public health administrator who served as the 13th surgeon general of the United States under President Ronald Reagan from 1982 to 1989.

In 1937, he earned his Bachelor of Arts in zoology degree from Dartmouth College, where he was given the nickname "Chick" (occasionally used for his first name, Charles, but here an allusion to a chicken coop).

His interest in medicine followed a year in the hospital after a childhood skiing accident and brain hemorrhage.

He earned his MD degree from Cornell Medical College in 1941 and Doctor of Science degree in medicine from the University of Pennsylvania in 1947.

From 1946 to 1981, Koop was the surgeon-in-chief at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP).

Koop was able to establish the nation's first neonatal surgical intensive care unit there in 1956.

He first gained international recognition in 1957 by the separation of two female pygopagus infants (conjoined at the pelvis) and then, again, in 1974 by the separation of two ischiopagus twins (conjoined at the spine) sharing a liver, colon, and parts of the intestines with their entire trunks merged.

Koop was active in publishing articles in the medical literature.

Koop later wrote that: "Each day of those early years in pediatric surgery I felt I was on the cutting edge. Some of the surgical problems that landed on the operating table at Children's had not even been named. Many of the operations I performed had never been done before. It was an exuberant feeling, but also a little scary. At times I was troubled by fears that I wasn't doing things the right way, that I would have regrets, or that someone else had performed a certain procedure successfully but had never bothered to write it up for the medical journals, or if they had I couldn't find it."

Koop helped rectify this by publishing his own findings and results.

Koop became a professor of pediatric surgery in 1959 and professor of pediatrics in 1971 at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

While a surgeon in Philadelphia, Koop performed groundbreaking surgical procedures on conjoined twins, invented techniques which today are commonly used for infant surgery, and saved the lives of countless children who otherwise might have been allowed to die.

He invented anesthetic and surgical techniques for small bodies and metabolisms and participated in the separation of several sets of conjoined twins whose condition other physicians at the time considered hopeless.

Additionally, he became the first editor of the Journal of Pediatric Surgery when it was founded in 1966.

In contrast to his years as surgeon general, when it was his policies and speeches that had bearing on other people, his years as an operating pediatric surgeon involved a more individualized, direct, hands-on effect on others.

During the course of his long career, for example, he performed some seventeen thousand inguinal hernia repairs and over seven thousand orchidopexies (surgery for correcting undescended testicle).

He developed new procedures, such as the colon interposition graft for correcting esophageal atresia (congenital lack of continuity of the esophagus) or ventriculoperitoneal shunts for treatment of hydrocephalus (accumulation of excessive cerebral spinal fluid in and around the brain causing neurological problems).

He also tackled many difficult cases ranging from childhood cancer to surgeries done on conjoined twins, of which he and his colleagues operated upon ten pairs during his 35-year tenure.

In all he operated on many children and babies with congenital defects 'incompatible with life but amenable to surgical correction'.

He helped establish the biliary atresia program at CHOP when Japanese surgeon Morio Kasai came to work with him in the 1970s.

He also established the pediatric surgery fellowship training program at CHOP.

During his tenure there he graduated 35 residents and 14 foreign fellows, many of whom went on to become professors of pediatric surgery, directors of divisions of pediatric surgery, and surgeons-in-chief of children's hospitals.

In 1976, Koop wrote The Right to Live, The Right to Die, setting down his strong opposition to abortion and euthanasia.

Koop also took some time off from his surgical practice to make a series of films with conservative Christian apologists Frank Schaeffer and his father Francis Schaeffer in 1978, entitled Whatever Happened to the Human Race? based on the book of the same title that was previously written by the elder Schaeffer.

Frank Schaeffer and his associate, Jim Buchfuehrer provided a private, five hour screening to U.S. Rep. Jack Kemp and wife Joanne on their home that, according to Frank Schaeffer's account of the late evening and early morning event in his book Crazy for God, led to both the Schaeffers and Koop obtaining "...access to everyone in the Republican Party".

According to the Associated Press, "Koop was the only surgeon general to become a household name" due to his frequent public presence around the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s.

Koop was known for his work on tobacco use, AIDS, and abortion, and for his support of the rights of children with disabilities.

President Ronald Reagan, shortly after his first inauguration, appointed Koop Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health in February 1981.

It was understood that Reagan would later nominate Koop to be surgeon general.

As expected, Koop was nominated to be Surgeon General of the United States by Reagan later in 1981.

Many liberal politicians and women's groups opposed the nomination because of Koop's very conservative views and strong anti-abortion beliefs.

His nomination was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on November 16, 1981, by a vote of 60–24.

He was sworn into office on January 21 the following year.

Though Koop was opposed to abortion on personal and religious grounds, he declined to state that abortion procedures performed by qualified medical professionals posed a substantial health risk to the women whose pregnancies were being terminated, despite political pressure to endorse such a position.

Koop, an opponent of abortion, resisted pressure from the Reagan administration in 1987 to prepare a report stating that abortion was psychologically harmful to women.

He said it was not a public health issue but a moral one.

Koop assigned an assistant, George Walter, the task of researching the matter.

Walter obtained a list of articles from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), authored mostly by CDC abortion-surveillance staff, and consulted with Alan Guttmacher Institute personnel.