White House doctor was honoured for saving lives in Afghanistan
CONFUSING reports about the state of Donald Trump’s health have intensified the focus on his physician of the past two years, Sean Conley.
Dr Conley’s cautiously optimistic pronouncements were contradicted by Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, who said that he understood that the US president’s vitals had been “very concerning”. It is not the first time that a physician to Mr Trump has found himself at the centre of a controversy. During the last presidential campaign, Harold Bornstein, then Mr Trump’s doctor, released a letter saying that he would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency”.
Ronny Jackson, who was the first presidential physician, also gave Mr Trump a glowing medical testimony, saying he had “great genes”.
Dr Conley, who took on the role of presidential physician in March 2018, deemed Mr Trump to be in “very good health” following a physical exam in February 2019. Dr Conley, a father of three who is married to a physician, is believed to be the first doctor of osteopathy to hold the position.
A graduate of the University of Notre Dame, he studied at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine before becoming an emergency physician with the US Navy in 2006. He later became director of medical trauma at a Nato hospital in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where he received glowing reviews and was awarded the Romanian Emblem of Honour for saving the lives of a number of soldiers injured by a bomb.
As presidential physician, Dr Conley was thrust into the public spotlight in May when it emerged that Mr Trump had been taking the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine. While Mr Trump hyped up the drug, which he had requested from his physician, medical experts voiced concern over its side-effects and questioned its use as a treatment for coronavirus.
In a White House memo, Dr Conley wrote that, after discussions with Mr Trump, they concluded “the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks”.
The following month, a study in The New England Journal of Medicine concluded that hydroxychloroquine was ineffective.
On Saturday, Dr Conley told reporters that Mr Trump was not taking hydroxychloroquine.
“We discussed it, he asked about it. He’s not on it now,” he said.
The Telegraph contacted the Walter Reed Medical Centre for comment.