PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - L., J. F. TI - NATION'S DOCTOR—SURGEON GENERAL DP - 1994 Apr 01 TA - Pediatrics PG - 655--655 VI - 93 IP - 4 4099 - http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/93/4/655.short 4100 - http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/93/4/655.full SO - Pediatrics1994 Apr 01; 93 AB - The office of Surgeon General has off and on been slated for termination. But that was before Ronald Reagan's Surgeon General, the patriarchal, independent-minded C. Everett Koop, emerged from obscurity to become the telegenic evangelist of the AIDS crisis. Tolerated by the Reagan White House as a bargain-priced diversion from its own lassitude on AIDS, Koop demonstrated how the office could be used for mass education by a public health champion with a rhetorical flair. In TV parlance, the Surgeon General became the "nation's doctor." Koop's visibility was enhanced when he exercised the long-neglected right of Public Health Service officers to deck themselves out in navy-cut gold-braided uniforms.