Click here to enlarge above image
By Hal Brown
I assume you’ve been reading articles about Sean P. Conley, D.O., Physician to the President.
Here are some photos of Ward 71, the presidential suite inside Walter Reed Medical Center where he works when he’s not schmoozing around the White House medical office.
What jumped out at me besides how evasive he was in the widely reported spectacle billed as a press conference was the ginormous seal he was wearing on the white hospital jacket.
It isn’t the actual presidential seal, I assume only his Royal PooBah gets to gets say who wears that one. What he has on his coats is the center portion which is The Great Seal of The United States. Maybe if Dr. Conley is a good fellow he’ll get his badge upgraded to a special personally autographed Presidential Seal patch.
(Update): I just noticed he is the only doctor not wearing scrubs under his white hospital jacket. He is wearing a white shirt, tie, and dark dress pants.
Here are some snippets from The NY Times article: What to Know About Sean Conley, the White House Physician (subscription).
He is a doctor of osteopathic medicine
Dr. Conley graduated from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine in 2006, according to records from the Virginia Board of Medicine. (Note: It is not among the top rated DO schools. HB)
While their training is similar, doctors of osteopathic medicine, or D.O.s, differ from traditional medical doctors in that they are trained to look at the body and its care holistically rather than prescribing medicine for specific symptoms or illnesses.
He supported Mr. Trump’s taking hydroxychloroquine
In May, Dr. Conley gained attention after revealing that Mr. Trump had started taking hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug, while under his care.
In a letter in May discussing Mr. Trump’s use of hydroxychloroquine, Dr. Conley said he and the president had “concluded the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks.”
At the news conference on Saturday, Dr. Conley told reporters that Mr. Trump was not taking hydroxychloroquine.
“We discussed it,” Dr. Conley said. “He asked about it. He’s not on it now.”
I can imagine that there are more than a few other doctors and medical staff at Walter Reed who may look askance at him for sporting his big badge. Maybe not. I am cynical and would be embarrassed to wear what I consider to be an ostentatious badge like that.
Depending on how humble he is and willing to heed the recommendations of doctors who know more than he does I can hear someone mocking him saying “I’m the president’s doctor, whoopee-doo.”
I am sure he has a finely honed bedside manner attuned to Trump’s personality, but some truly horrendous doctors are great interacting with their patients and their medical acumen is not so great. I mean this is the hydroxychloroquine doctor.
Click to enlarge above image
I also wonder how these member of the team felt as they lagged along quite some distance behind Conley as he led them in their internationally viewed march.
Click to view another image of the Conley march
I wonder what they were thinking when they had to stand dutifully behind him as he smiled while giving his evasive report about just how well his patient was doing.
Note how they are all standing in identical poses (enlarge).
On another subject, while I don’t doubt that Walter Reed is a very good hospital with highly qualified staff, if I was the president and had a choice I’d want to be treated at one of the very best hospitals in the country, nearby Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins which is also rated as one of the best hospitals in the world.
In closing, I want to wish that Donald Trump leaves the hospital as a truly healthy person in every way.
ADDENDUM:
From “The medical briefing on Trump’s health was an insulting exercise in obfuscation” in Washington Post. (Subscription)
Excerpt:
White House physician Sean Conley volunteered that the president was not on supplemental oxygen at the time of the news conference and that day, but repeatedly evaded questions about whether Trump had been on oxygen since he became ill.
This kind of too-clever-by-half, rosy-scenario briefing neither reflects well on Conley nor serves the public interest — especially when Conley’s happy talk was contradicted in short order by White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who said Trump went through a “very concerning” period Friday and is “still not on a clear path yet to a full recovery.”
There was also no accounting of test results. Another physician cited cardiac, kidney and liver tests as being normal, and Conley referred to the president as having received “ultrasounds.” For covid-19, a respiratory disease, it’s inconceivable that lung studies of X-rays or CT scans weren’t conducted. What did they show? Without a full description of which diagnostic tests were performed, we are left to wonder whether other test results weren’t revealed because they were abnormal.
Then there are major questions raised about the timeline of the president’s diagnosis. Conley reported that Trump developed a fever Thursday. Fever is usually a later sign that follows other symptoms of covid-19. Conley said Trump had other symptoms, such as cough, congestion and feeling run-down. When did the first of these symptoms start?
The answer is important because those with the virus are most infectious 48 hours before symptom onset. Public health officials need to know in order to trace back the president’s steps and find out who else could have been exposed.