The White House physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, has been deeply intertwined in the Biden family for 15 years and the close relationship has raised doubts about his objectivity in assessing President Biden for neurological problems that some believe have rendered him unfit to serve.
The doctor of osteopathic medicine and retired Army colonel, who recently provided a glowing medical report for Mr. Biden, has served as his physician since 2009, when Mr. Biden was sworn in as vice president.
He soon became an integral part of the Biden world, a family friend who traveled with them on vacations, consulted on family medical issues and became Mr. Biden’s “eyes and ears” when his son Beau Biden was hospitalized with a brain tumor in 2015.
House lawmakers last week summoned Dr. O’Connor to Capitol Hill to explain his involvement in at least one Biden family business deal that netted the family $600,000.
Lawmakers said they are concerned the president may have cognitive problems concealed by a compromised White House medical unit and shielded by other close aides.
“Doc O’Connor,” as the president and his family call him, issued a medical report in February that belies what many in the public are seeing in the aging president, declaring him “a healthy, active, robust 81-year-old male who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.”
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Dr. O’Connor has acted as more than just a White House physician, according to the president’s 2017 memoir, “Promise Me, Dad.”
The physician left his post in the White House medical office while Beau Biden was hospitalized in Philadelphia and sat with him in the ICU during visiting hours and used his medical credentials to remain at the hospital with the president’s son after visiting hours ended. He even accompanied Beau Biden into the operating room during brain surgery at another hospital.
Dr. O’Connor served as an advisor to the vice president when Mr. Biden agonized over taking time off from his White House obligations to remain by Beau Biden’s side in the hospital.
Dr. O’Connor advised him to stick to his vice presidential work schedule and keep “hitting his marks,” and that he would update him on Beau Biden from the hospital.
Mr. Biden’s memoir recounts Dr. O’Connor accompanying the family on trips to Nantucket and playing a key role in helping to diagnose and treat the president’s son, who eventually succumbed to the tumor in May of 2015.
The president recounts that Beau Biden “grabbed Doc’s hand” on the way into surgery and told him, “No matter what happens. Take care of Pop. For real. Promise me. For real.”
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Other Biden family members have described Dr. O’Connor’s involvement in their medical issues.
In court documents related to a medical malpractice lawsuit, Sara Biden, the wife of James Biden, the president’s brother, testified in 2015 that Dr. O’Connor consulted with Caroline Biden, the president’s niece, about an eye condition.
James Biden set up the meeting.
“It would have been customary for [James Biden] on his own to ask for a recommendation by his friend, Colonel O’Connor,” Sara Biden testified.
“Colonel O’Connor,” Sara Biden testified, “was actually a family friend. And we would frequently ask for his recommendations if any of us had a medical issue, so it was not uncommon to ask him if he had a recommendation.”
James Biden engaged Dr. O’Connor in at least one of the family’s business ventures, House documents show.
House lawmakers are seeking documents and an interview with Dr. O’Connor related to his actions to help James Biden pull in $600,000 from a deal with Americore, a rural hospital corporation, beginning in 2017.
According to House testimony provided by the president’s brother in February, Dr. O’Connor served essentially as a consultant in helping him come up with proposals for “filling these hospitals” from which Americore sought to profit. Dr. O’Connor, James Biden said, introduced him to “a team” of people seeking to address a backlog of patients at VA hospitals.
“Given your connections with the Biden family, the committee also seeks to understand if you are in a position to provide accurate and independent reviews of the president’s fitness to serve,” House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, Kentucky Republican, wrote to Dr. O’Connor.
Dr. O’Connor has mostly remained silent about the president’s health. He issued a rare statement earlier last week following reports that a Parkinson’s doctor has visited the White House 10 times over the past two years. Dr. O’Connor said the visits were not related to Mr. Biden, despite public declarations from neurologists who have not treated the president that he appears to be suffering from the degenerative brain disease.
Mr. Biden has been examined by a neurological specialist for each of his annual physicals, Dr. O’Connor said.
This year’s exam, he said, ”was again reassuring in that there were no findings which would be consistent with any cerebellar or other central neurological disorder, such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s,” or other related diseases.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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