In a social media post after the visit, Trump said that he had just finished his “6 month physical” and that “Everything checked out PERFECTLY.”
“I think concern for the president’s physical health is probably at an all-time high, and I think advanced physical age is the No. 1 concern,” said Dr. Jeffrey Kuhlman, who served as a White House physician for more than a decade under Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
The White House has not disclosed what the visit entailed but expressed confidence in what it will show.
“President Trump is the sharpest and most accessible President in American history who is working nonstop to solve problems and deliver on his promises, and he remains in excellent health,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in a statement.
“Any so-called medical professionals engaging in armchair diagnosis or false speculation for political purposes are clearly breaking the Hippocratic Oath they’ve sworn to,” Ingle said.
Just like any other patient, presidents get to choose what’s disclosed about their health, said Sara Rosenthal, a bioethicist at the University of Kentucky who studies presidential health. Questions about transparency have become more acute as America elects aging presidents like Trump and Biden, she said.
“I think we can expect very little disclosure about the true health status of any president unless they’re in perfect health,” said Rosenthal, who has suggested an independent medical organization to review and report on the health of the president and those in the line of succession.
The frequency of Trump’s medical checkups is not uncommon for someone his age, according to S. Jay Olshansky of the University of Illinois-Chicago, who has studied the health of past presidents. It’s part of a strategy to catch problems while they’re still treatable, Olshansky said.
Olshansky says the public deserves to see more than White House medical summaries that “may be subject to editorial discretion.” Full, unredacted medical records should be made public, he said: “Nothing should be hidden.”
