The White House doctor in the picture over Joe Biden's cancer diagnosis
Among their biggest jobs is to perform an annual physical exam performed at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre to determine if the President is fit for office.
Stringent and thorough, they test everything from the President's general health, to their neurological and cognitive ability.
For decades, the White House has publicly released the results of the President's annual physical, listing their medications and other basic details about their health status.
But administrations have great discretion over what to include in the releases, given that there is no federal law requiring US presidents to release their health records.
In turn, some reports have faced questions over their accuracy.
At the centre of Biden's medical care is Dr O'Connor, who has had a close relationship with the Biden family that dates back to 2009.
The man Biden simply calls 'Doc' treated Biden's mother after she fell ill while recovering from hip surgery. Years later, he is said to have consulted with Biden's niece about an eye problem.
His relationship with Biden grew as he shadowed the medical team involved in the treatment of his son Beau's brain cancer.
As Beau's condition worsened, O'Connor was the family's 'eyes and ears' at the hospital, according to the memoir Promise Me, Dad.
He would go on to become a voice of reason for the former President. When Biden developed a fever before a trip to Central America, he described in his memoir how O'Connor urged him not to travel and to rest instead.
'Right now, you look like s***. I can't make you not look like s***,' Biden recounted. He ultimately took this advice.
He was initially contracted to be Biden's physician for just six months when the Obama administration began in 2009.
'That didn't work out and, so, I ended up doing the whole eight years with him,' O'Connor joked in an interview last year with the New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine about his role as the President's chief physician.
Biden brought O'Connor back to the White House when he became President in 2021.
'I retired and had a plan, and here I am again,' O'Connor, who grew up in New Jersey, said at the time.
Dr O'Connor worked closely with Biden's brother
Outside of the White House, O'Connor is said to have worked closely with James Biden, the President's brother, at a company that operated rural hospitals.
The stocky former army surgeon was always close to his number one patient, ready to provide care as needed though few outside the building would know who he is.
But Biden's politically crippling debate performance changed all that. It was he, just four months before the disastrous debate that unfolded in front of that world, who had overseen Biden's most recent physical exam in 2024 insisting the President at the time 'continues to be fit for duty and fully executes all of his responsibilities without any exemptions or accommodations'.
Trump questions medical assessments
Since then, a new book based on the accounts of White House insiders, Original Sin, claimed that aides shielded the public from the extent of Biden's decline.
Donald Trump questioned the medical assessments carried out by Dr O'Connor during a press conference in the Oval Office on Monday evening.
He said: 'I think that if you take a look, it's the same doctor that said that Joe was cognitively fine. 'There was nothing wrong with him'. If it's the same doctor, he said, there was nothing wrong there, and that's being proven to be a sad situation.'
'And I think somebody is going to have to speak to his doctor if it's the same or even if it's two separate doctors. Why wasn't the cognitive ability? Why wasn't that discussed? And I think the doctor said 'he's just fine', and it's turned out that's not so, it's very dangerous,' he added.
Dr Zeke Emanuel, vice-provost for global initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania told The Daily Telegraph: 'We have a long history of where the illnesses of presidents have been hidden from the public.
'We need an independent group of doctors, three doctors, not chosen by the president and not politicised.'
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Scoop
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Otago Daily Times
29-05-2025
- Otago Daily Times
Councillor springs to defence of Trump
If Donald Trump ever found himself on the West Coast, he could count on at least one fan to roll out the regional council welcome mat. Goldmining councillor Allan Birchfield sprang to the defence of the US President at this month's corporate services meeting, after the council's treasury adviser critiqued Mr Trump's tariff policies and their chaotic impact on financial markets. Bancorp corporate manager Miles O'Connor was presenting the firm's quarterly report on the West Coast Regional Council's (WCRC) $14-million investment fund, and the global trends likely to affect interest rates — all backed up with graphs, facts and figures. The US was moving away from acting in the world's interest towards an America-centric approach, he noted. Traditionally 60% of the world's capital had gone to the US because it was seen as a safe haven in uncertain times, Mr O'Connor said. Predicting profits and interest rates had become so difficult that some banks and major companies had given up forecasting completely, Mr O'Connor said. The US president had also challenged the independence of the Federal Reserve by calling on its governor to cut interest rates. "Now that's just not done normally by political leaders. You don't see our Reserve Bank being told by the prime minister you must drop rates. It's inherent in monetary policy that the central bank is independent of political influence." Mr Trump had since reduced the 145% tarrifs on Chinese goods to 30%, and the markets had settled down somewhat, but some tariffs would be permanent and New Zealand exports would be affected, Mr O'Connor said. "My view is (Mr Trump) probably won't go back to what he was doing; he probably didn't expect the reaction he got." Two Trump policies that did make sense were US defence spending and ending "unfettered" immigration, Mr O'Connor said. "I'm not totally opposed to what he (Mr Trump) does — some of the other policies I am slightly dubious about." Cr Birchfield — whose goldmine office sports a large photo of Mr Trump, seized his opening. "I'm pleased you're starting to give Donald a bit of credit ... you go on with the usual rhetoric, anti-Donald Trump. "You say the US only does stuff in its own interest — you need to think about the US Navy — it guarantees freedom of trade — even for China [and] it's a huge cost on the US taxpayer." Mr O'Connor agreed the US does protect world trade. "But [the tariffs] are having an effect on our exports — we know that from some of our clients who've had orders cancelled." Mr Birchfield continued, saying Trump has got huge problem of debt and a trade imbalance with China. Mr O'Connor said the reason for the trade imbalance was that the US just could not match China's manufacturing capabilities. Council chairman Peter Haddock put an end to the exchange, saying "we've had a shot across the bows by the US". "We have to recognise the volatility in the world ... the best we can get out of it is lower interest rates." ■LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
