C. Everett Koop (born 1916), one of America's most outspoken surgeons general, served two terms in the 1980s. Koop's appointment angered liberals. However, the conservative Christian doctor later alienated social conservatives by refusing to compromise his common-sense approach to health issues for the sake of politics.

Brooklyn, NY-born Koop graduated from Dartmouth College in 1937 and earned his M.D. degree from Cornell Medical College in 1941. Following an internship, he pursued postgraduate training at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital, and the Graduate School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, from which he earned a doctor of science degree in medicine in 1947.

Koop became a professor of pediatric surgery at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine in 1959 and professor of pediatrics in 1971. Koop also was surgeon-in-chief of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia from 1948 until he left academia in 1981. At the hospital, Koop gained renown for...