Lecture March 23, 1988
15/5
The "Charge" 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 Surgeon General's Workshop on Health Promotion and Aging
Washington, DC
March 23, 1988
This very short address is included in this archive as an example as the type of "Charge" I gave at Surgeon General's Workshops. These workshops were really the backbone of the enervative and creative things that I accomplished as Surgeon General and it has been stated previously they all had the same format: the "Charge" in the evening of the first day, breakout sessions with invited participants all day the second day. On the third day, the first half of the morning consisted of replies from the breakout groups on their assigned topics and the last half of the morning and the conclusion was the Surgeon General's response which was obviously not prepared in advance, was tricky to give because it represented a statement by government about a health problem and I had to be careful that I wasn't committing the government to something that it could not do either politically or financially. This is a typical Charge and is included because of that reason.