With the current CoS in China? I’d think so. Even with CJ in the states, I’d think so - she can’t be in the White House at all times, and Josh has to be picking up the slack at those times. Redundancy is an absolute necessity.
Barlett was beginning to notice the signs of an MS attack before they left DC. He changed the SG’s plans at the last moment and told her she was coming along on the trip. Though he gave another reason, it was almost certainly so he’d have extra medical attention on the plane. The SG wouldn’t be as obligated as his regular docs to disclose his condition to the public, would she?
I was a little confused about where Abby was. Did she to China fly separately from the Pres?
The President was having problems and wanted a physician he could trust on the plane. CJ or Toby made the comment in the previous episode.
Regular docs don’t have an obligation to disclose anyone’s condition to the public, president or ditch digger. The reason that Bartlett was censured during his first term wasn’t because he didn’t disclose his condition, but because he lied about his condition when he voluntarily disclosed it.
I imagine the SG was onboard because her presence wouldn’t raise as many media flags within Air Force One as would a team of civilian docs. Which press release would look more suspicious:
AIR FORCE ONE, Pacific Ocean - President Bartlett briefly met this afternoon with some members of the media to discuss on-ground protocol for the summit meeting with China. Issues such as North Korea, trade deficits, AIDS, health care and economic sanctions are anticipated to be on the table. In attendance in the President’s galley were Chief of Staff CJ Krieg, super-genius State Department lackey, First Lady Abby Bartlett, and the Surgeon General.
-or-
AIR FORCE ONE, Pacific Ocean - President Bartlett briefly met this afternoon with some members of the media to discuss on-ground protocol for the summit meeting with China. Issues such as North Korea, trade deficits, AIDS, health care and economic sanctions are anticipated to be on the table. In attendance in the President’s galley were Chief of Staff CJ Krieg, super-genius State Department lackey, First Lady Abby Bartlett, and the President’s personal physician.
Yeah, she was “in India” doing First Lady type stuff before the summit. She arrived separately (Air Force Three, perhaps? :)) just before the president’s plane landed in China.
Could they have dragged out Jimmy Smits’ plotline any longer? My God, it was clear from the news stories written before the season started that he’d be running for president and they are just now finally getting to it at the season’s halfway point?
And if Josh is Deputy CoS, who’s running the show at the White House between his jaunt to Houston and C.J. returning? I guess the Bartlett White House has a liberal “personal time” policy. 
Maybe disclose was the wrong word, but any informal treatment that the SG might have administered likely wouldn’t have gone in the President’s medical history, which is usually made public. When the press became aware of the severity of the attack, that point became moot however.
By the First Lady, sure. Eleanor Roosevelt went into a room with FDR after the stroke, came out and said, “The President’s will is…”
BTW, she’s also a physician.
A log scale, even.
Ah, thanks. I missed that one.
Are you refering to not disclosing the illness on Zoey’s college entrance forms? That was the illegal thing Bartlett did.
But not disclosing his disease to the public while he was running for President is what pissed everyone off. MS is a physically wasting disease, one that had a significant chance of manifesting while he was in office (as we are now seeing.) Barlett knew he had the disease, knew that it was a part of him that the voting public should know about, and chose not to disclose it. While it was never called fraud, that’s what everyone was thinking.
Yes, in the first term, Barlett wasn’t affected by it significantly. But it could have been the other way, with everything we’re seeing now happen two years after his first election.
Don’t be too sure of that. Abbey lost her MD license for a year because she did the very same thing - provided medical care without documenting it. Anything the SG did, she would have to record in the Presidents medical record. I think he wanted her along because she is a close friend, and a medical doctor with extensive knowledge of the President’s specific condition, and wouldn’t get as crabby as Abbey about it.
I thought Abbey signed the college medical form.
I thought that she voluntarily gave up practicing for the rest of his term in office.
Yes, but documented where? And I don’t mean that to sound like a rhetorical question, because I really don’t know.
I’m trying to remember the whole history of who knew what, and when, with the MS. Before becoming President, didn’t Bartlett have had other physicians who were aware of the MS? I don’t think that his wife was the only doctor who ever knew, was she? IIRC, they were able to hide the condition from the military docs who gave the President his physicals. Because of this, none of the medical history that government doctors ever would have taken, would have shown that he had MS. Thus the public wouldn’t be aware of it.
I guess I wondering if it’s appropriate to think of medical histories this way: that the President would essentially have a private medical history taken by his private docs and a pulic one taken by government docs. The public wouldn’t be made aware of his private medical history.
I was thinking that this was the reason that he had the SG come along. She would be the best alternative to keep the episode private, since Abby wasn’t around.
In conversation between Abbey and the President it was explained that it doesn’t show up in a physical.
Also the Surgeon General is a longtime friend of the Bartlet family, so she’s another reassuring doctor.
Also the Chief of Staff is C.J. Cregg, not Krieg. West Wing characters all have names that are never quite what they appear to be.
I feel sorry for Joshua Malina’s character. He went from affable, but nerdy policy wonk to angry, defensive VP’s aide.
Another thing is that NBC’s website lists a repeat episode as being shown next week, but I thought that NBC wasn’t going to show any repeats of the show this season.
Wouldn’t the President,any President, no matter what, travel with a physician? To my mind, you don’t want to possibly be taken ill in a foreign country and need to be treated by doctors whose qualifications were unknown to you, and who aren’t intimately familiar with your medical history. Even travelling domestically - if he has a bad case of diarrhea, what’s he supposed to do, go to the local ER and wait his turn? Or a heart attack? If he must have security 24/7, you’d think he’d have a physician nearby, too.
StG
That’s correct. In fact, it can take years to diagnose.
His MS originally showed up during an eye exam, of all things. I remember him telling Toby that in “17 People.” But it took an MRI to confirm it. When it was in remission, it wouldn’t show up on a normal physical exam (I guess because MS doesn’t affect the outcome of ‘turn your head and cough’.)
And Abbey did sign Zoey’s forms - thanks for pointing that out. Barlet was censured by Congress for hiding his medical condition from voters. And she surrendered her license for one year to avoid stiffer penalties.
As for his medical record, CJ always went to the President after each phsyical to ask the President if there was anything else she should/need to know. I remember that being a big argument between her and Oliver. She did that because there was only so much his physician would release because of doctor-patient confidentiality. So there’s only one medical record, it seems. It’s just what is made public depends on the patient - Barlet - decides needs to be made public.
So where is Donna working now? Any guesses? I say she’s working for Hoynes.