The Health of Presidents and Presidential Candidates: Dilemmas and Controversies

Author(s): Jerrold M. Post

Source: Political Psychology , Dec., 1995, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Dec., 1995), pp. 757-759
Published by: International Society of Political Psychology

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3791891

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Political Psychology, Vol. 16, No. 4, 1995

The Health of Presidents and Presidential

Candidates: Dilemmas and Controversies

Jerrold M. Post, M.D.

The George Washington University

The demands upon the president of the United States are extraordina
Clearly to withstand these stresses and provide fully effective leadership
president should possess impressive physical and mental reserves and
health-physical and mental-should be unimpaired.
Yet all too often, the incumbent of the most powerful office on Earth suff
serious illness while in the White House. Indeed, as we shall see, many cand
for the highest office had suffered serious illness before running for high offi
existence or gravity of which had been concealed from public view.
The race for the White House is already in full swing. The issue of age
health have already been raised for two of the Republican candidates: Sen
Majority Leader Robert Dole (age; prostate cancer) and Pat Buchanan (
condition requiring cardiac pacemaker.) As these articles make clear, the Am
can public has a right to know that the candidates for the most powerful offic
earth are physically and mentally healthy and able to withstand the rigors
job, but the degree of health information needed by the public, and how
information should be obtained and communicated are matters of considera
controversy.
The symposium seeks to address the many dilemmas and controve
surrounding the health of presidents and of presidential candidates. Does ru
for the highest office require giving up all vestiges of privacy? Is the pu
entitled to all details of the medical history of candidates? To a medical e
tion of the candidates? Should the president's health be an open book? Wh
does the presidential physician serve-the suffering individual, the occupa
the role, or the American public? What of the ethical requirement for* do
patient confidentiality? If the principle of confidentiality is waived because
public obligation, can the physician adequately treat the president? In the e
of impairment of the president's health, who shall determine whether the d
of impairment is sufficient as to trigger the 25th amendment to the Cons
757

0162-895X ? 1995 International Society of Political Psychology

Published by Blackwell Publishers, 238 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA, and 108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4

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758 Post

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The Health of Presidents and Presidential Candidates 759

perspective of the White House physician, has m

Robins and Post examine the history of medica
presidency, including incumbents, and review th
cerning evaluation both of medical records an
incumbent.

The questions are daunting, but each proposal to correct flaws creates
problems. Each proposal to ensure the public is fully informed concerning the
health status of presidential candidates and the president, and the matter of a
special panel for the determination of presidential disability, interfere with the
confidential relationship between the physician and his special patient. Yet to
treat these matters as the private concerns of the individuals interferes with the
public's need to be fully informed about their leadership. But if the president
believes his physician will reveal potentially damaging illness to the public, he
may conceal symptoms of illness from his doctor. Fearing disclosure, both the
president and potential presidential candidates might avoid needed treatment.
As with all ethical conflicts, these are conflicts between ethical systems-
the conflict between the individual's right to privacy and the public's right to
know, between obligations to the private patient and those of the public official,
between the Hippocratic oath and the Constitutional oath.

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