President Trump will undergo his annual medical exam for 2019, but the White House hasn’t yet disclosed when.
“The president will, as always, undergo a yearly physical. We’ll keep you posted on the date and time when that happens,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said during a press briefing Monday.
Sanders did not elaborate on whether Trump, 72, would release the records to the public. No law obligates presidents to do so, and throughout history presidents have either released partial records or masked severe medical conditions from the public.
The Washington Examiner noted that on Jan. 12 Trump had passed the one-year mark since his last routine medical checkup, which takes place at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. At the time the White House hadn’t confirmed either way whether Trump planned to undergo a physical this year.
The exam is likely to be overseen by Dr. Sean Conley, the White House doctor.
Presidents don’t necessarily have annual physicals or release them to the public every year. Former President George H.W. Bush had at least four routine medical exams while in office, Bill Clinton had six, George W. Bush had at least five, and Barack Obama had at least four, a Washington Examiner review of presidential archives shows.
When Trump underwent his first physical as president on Jan. 12, 2018, he received a glowing bill of health from Dr. Ronny Jackson, the White House doctor who also worked under former Bush 43 and Obama. Jackson read the results of the exam to the public and took questions from reporters for nearly an hour.
While he said Trump needed to lose weight, he also said Trump had passed an assessment used to measure possible early signs of dementia and that he had “incredibly good genes.” Jackson declared Trump “fit for duty.”
In the months that followed, Jackson faced questions about the credibility of his assessment. In April 2018, after Trump nominated Jackson to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs, the doctor became the subject of rumors from anonymous sources who said he would get drunk on the job and was improperly prescribing medications to White House staff. Jackson fiercely denied the accusations but eventually withdrew his name from consideration.
