Having watched the end of that video several times, I don’t find that convincing. But it’s certainly very kind of you.
Meanwhile, others (including cartoonist Barry Blitt) have noted the whiny-baby aspect of the incident:
(“Mom” is Bari Weiss, of course.)
That is a great cartoon! I love his juicebox is a Diet Coke.
Yeah, that alone makes Barry Blitt worth following.
eta: if his style looks familiar, it’s because he’s done a LOT of New Yorker covers. (He’s a Canadian, by the way.)
So it seems Trump saw 22 medical specialists as part of his last checkup. 22… because he’s so healthy, right? I bet they were all there to marvel at what a specimen he is. Surely they all had tears in their eyes as they gazed upon him:
My local Sinclair-adjacent paper printed his physician’s “report” (6-3, 238 pounds, resting heart rate of 73, etc) without comment today. Is that a “look outside and see if it’s raining” moment or what?
The only time I’ve had a crowd of doctors in the examining room is when I went in because the side of my face was red, swollen, and hot. The attending physician took a few looks, said “hmm”, and said it was cellulitis, treatable with antibiotics. He then left, and came back with half a dozen residents, each of whom then touched and patted my face. When a crowd like that happens, either you’re at a teaching hospital, or you have a really weird case.
and…?
I lived. Lots of Vancomycin IVs given as an outpatient in the ER.
Not the outcome I expected!
I’m sensing a journal article or two in the making after he’s gone.
To be far more fair to Trump than he deserves, I counted up the number of specialists I saw after I had a stroke and the number adds up quickly. However, I had the stroke back in 2020 so my accounting covers several years. Also, what is the definition of specialist? Is it anyone in the medical field who has a particular function? If so, that really bumps up the count. Is a dentist a specialist? Yes but also not really. I’d consider the dermatologist to be a specialist but that is because I couldn’t just walk into that office and ask for services there, I had to be referred by my GP.
Having said that, 22 in a single visit would mean something is going on. After I had a stroke, I was in the hospital for an ECG. During the process, the technician (who may or may not be a specialist depending on how you define the term) discovered that I was in atrial fibrillation as he was doing the scan. I immediately became the most popular person in the hospital and there were two doctors waiting for me when they wheeled me up to Emergency. So if we count the ECG tech, the two doctors and a handful of nurses and Emergency staff then I might have seen six or seven “specialists” in a single day. Seeing 22 in a day would be possible I suppose, if the Presidential examinations are very thorough. But if it’s 22 specialists as in doctors then we’re talking about some necromancy.
In the United States, a specialist is a doctor who focuses on a narrow area of care. Dermatology, oncology, pediatrics, endocrinology, etc., etc. You typically wouldn’t go see an oncologist unless there was some concern regarding cancer. For historical reasons, dental and medical are seperate categories. You might go see a dental specialist but he or she typically isn’t considered a medical specialist. Twenty-two specialist is a lot for a healthy person.
And of course there’s Dr. Samuel Gall, who specialized in diseases of the rich.
Whatever is going on, it isn’t professional medical treatment.
Trump was at the hospital for 3 and a half hours.
That’s 9 minutes per doctor. No doctor of any specialty can do a checkup in 9 minutes.
My guess is that they took Trump to the hospital for one or two tests that required equipment not available in the White House. This meant he had to get naked and probed in embarrassing ways.Then , to assuage his ego, they called in 20 other doctors to tell Trump what a fine healthy man he is, with his yuge hands and good looks and all.
I hope he has to visit Quincy.
He’s the best specialist!
Not Thomas Noguchi, Coroner to the Stars? Mr. Potato Head was, after all, a TV game show host.
A fake president deserves a fake coroner.
An interesting substack by a paramedic on what his instincts would tell him about Trump’s physical symptoms if he were presented with him on a medical run, while also knowing that Trump receives a CT scan every three months. Chronic heart failure, likely abdominal aortic aneurism, and obvious dementia.
Indeed. And I hope he’s right about all the symptoms he described.
This quote made me chuckle:
We all know that Trump sustains himself only on McDonalds and bigotry