THE PUBLIC HEALTH DOCTOR

(Oil on Canvas, 24" x 30", 61.5cm x 77cm)

While surgeons, oncologists and radiologists symbolize modern medicine's infatuation with high-tech equipment, the field of public health medicine still deals principally with down-to-earth problems such as pollution, gun control, substance abuse, poor nutrition, bigotry and superstition. Our sanitary engineers literally save more lives than our surgeons. When it comes to health, as Pogo said, "We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us." This is the only painting in the series wherein Perez caricatures a recognizable, well-known doctor-former U.S. Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop. Dr. Koop receives this honor because Perez has been so impressed by Koop's leadership in national and global public health. God bless our unheralded public-health doctors.

Studies in Pencil

Initial "P"

Besieged

Smoking your head off

Plague

Steaming glop

Table of Contents (with in-line images) (without) | On-line Exhibitions

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Last updated: 8 May 1998