Lecture Vol. 11 Tab C (Pst SG yrs.) March 11, 1990 cover

Speech

BY

C. Everett Koop, MD, ScD

American Pharmaceutical Association
    Washington DC
     March 11.1990

Many of my talks at this particular time of my life were on the doctor/patient relationship
and the plea to return to a humanitarian basis in the practice of medicine. I often
lamented the fact that whereas when I was younger the physicians were always number
one in polls about the profession the public most admired. Medicine has slipped (it is
now 170, but at this time pharmacists had for the first time risen to the rank of Number 1
- a position they have maintained practically every year since 1990.

The value of this presentation for the user of this archive or the historian of health care
delivery is that time when we had very high expectations for medicine and health, we do
not seem to be delivering and even though many of the causes that demand a change that
might be condensed under the term of "health care reform". It is amazing to me thirteen
years after giving.this talk how much we knew, how many signs were evident, how much
could have been done, and yet, how little has been accomplished. Subsequent talks in
this archive - which naturally have to be somewhat repetitive from time to time - will
outline for the user the way the problems mounted like a brick wall, "small brick upon
small brick, until at the present time as this introduction is being written, we have over 40
per cent of our population uninsured, we spend more money than any other industrialized
nation on health care delivery, and yet, we have not the health population such
expenditure, should guarantee.