Navy osteopath Sean Conley commands White House medical team

A serving military doctor effectively on secondment, when Sean Conley gives updates on the president he knows his patient is watching.

White House physician Sean Conley has become a household name during Donald Trump’s COVID-19 scare. Picture: AFP

When Sean Conley gives updates on President Trump’s health, he is not only talking about his patient but also his commander-in-chief.

Like many of his predecessors, he is a serving military doctor effectively on secondment to the White House.

Before his assignment to the president in 2018, Dr Conley was an emergency medic in the navy and ran the trauma department at a NATO base in Kandahar, Afghanistan. He holds the rank of commander.

White House physician Sean Conley, centre, flanked by other doctors at Walter Reed hospital. Picture: AFP

His first appearance in the public eye came in May after Mr Trump said that he had begun taking the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a prophylactic against the coronavirus, even though the US food and drug administration had said it should only be used in hospitals or as part of clinical trials.

In a letter Dr Conley said that he had prescribed the drug after he and the president had “concluded the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks”.

Dr Conley, 40, also supervised Mr Trump’s physical examination last year, declaring him in “very good health overall”.

He listed the president’s weight as 243lb (110kg), up from 239lb (108kg) the previous year, and said that he had a body mass index of 30.4, which is considered obese.

Dr Conley is an osteopath, although the American osteopathic qualification is very different from that undertaken in other countries. To receive his doctorate from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine in 2006, Dr Conley had similar training to other medical doctors, but with an extra emphasis on the muscle and skeletal system.

Doctors of osteopathy are licensed to practise in the same way as medical doctors throughout the US and make up about one in ten of all American physicians.

Before his osteopathic qualification Dr Conley, who grew up in Pennsylvania, studied science at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

In what at times have been circumlocutory press briefings from the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, Dr Conley has provoked confusion about the true state of the 74-year-old president’s health.

In a briefing on Saturday he declined to answer whether the president had been given oxygen during his treatment, only stressing that he had not received any that day. It later became clear that Mr Trump had been given supplemental oxygen on Friday, before he was transported to Walter Reed.

Appearing again at the head of a squadron of doctors wearing monogrammed white coats on Sunday, Dr Conley tried to justify his evasion.

“I was trying to reflect the upbeat attitude of the team (and) the president over the course of his illness,” he said.

“I didn’t want to give any info that might steer the course of illness in another direction.”

The statement appeared to hint at the reality that the television-addict president was watching Dr Conley’s remarks inside the hospital.

The Times