White House Doctor

by Burton T. Smith

Overview

Only a handful of doctors have been responsible for the health and well-being of preisdents of the United States. This is the highly personalized story of T. Burton Smith, M.D., White House doctor to President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George Bush during two of the most eventful years in recent American History.
Dr. Smith was with President Reagan during his meetings with world leaders from Mitterand and Kohl to Gorbachev and Hirohito. He was rarely more than a few minutes away from the president and First Lady in the White House, Camp David, aboard Air Force One, or at their 688-acre ranch in California.
Never before has a White House doctor described in such intimate detail what it's like to look after the most powerful man on earth. This book fills that void.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780819186256
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	01/22/1993
Pages:	178
Product dimensions:	6.22(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.77(d)

About the Author

T. Burton Smith, M.D. is retired from private practice but remains active in the medical community. He is a member of the Board of Regents for the Uniformed Dervices University Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland and freqently comes back to Washington to attend their meetings. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife.
Carter Henderson is an author of business books and a former foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. He lives in Florida and frequently writes on medical topics.

Editorial Reviews

T. Burton Smith, M.D. has written an extraordinary book...[that is] inspiring, informative, historically very valuable, and one that portrays the myriad of emotions involved with having the most important job a physician can have—caring for the President of the United States. It's one of the very few chronicles of such a position that exist in our country's history.

Harry C. Miller

White House Doctor is a lively and readable account...an important addition to the neglected story of presidential physicians.

Kenneth W. Thompson

Doctor and friend to Ronald Reagan for 15 years before his election to the presidency and White House physician to the Reagans and Vice President and Barbara Bush from 1985 to 1987, Smith, writing with freelancer Henderson, here records his famous patients' illnesses and surgery, and notes advances made since George Washington's day in medicine, security and luxury--enjoyed by today's White House occupants. Smith prizes his encounters with political nabobs at White House functions and on foreign travels with the President. His diagnostic eye for detail extends to landscapes, furnishings and cuisine. Smith's critical role as a source of public information on the state of Reagan's health was often a delicate one, especially in relation to Nancy Reagan, and while he relished the perks of his position, he resented being relegated to a basement office and the lowly status of doctors on the White House totem pole. Photos not seen by PW. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Smith served as White House physician during 1985 and 1986, but, unlike other Reagan administration memoirists, he has no skeletons to reveal. Instead, his admiration for Ronald Reagan as a leader and as an individual remain constant. Smith was not the attending physician when Reagan was almost assassinated in 1981 and therefore provides little new information about this memorable and traumatic event. In addition, his recounting of nonmedical events is frequently choppy. He is more successful when discussing the medical care available for Presidents Reagan and Bush. Smith also offers insights into issues that are rarely addressed, showing how improvements in medical care could have saved the life of President William McKinley, describing medical facilities aboard Air Force I and emergency facilities in foreign countries, and offering sometimes unintended revelations about the role of the physician in the White House pecking order. Suitable for large public libraries. See also Robert E. Gilbert's The Mortal Presidency: Illness and Anguish in the White House , reviewed on p. 86.--Ed.-- Karl Helicher, Upper Merion Twp . Lib., King of Prussia, Pa.

Library Journal

Urologist Smith treated Ronald Reagan in California before serving as the president's personal physician, 1985-86. His is not the first substantial testimony by a presidential physician: Janet Travell's "Office Hours" included much on her care of President Kennedy, and other books and articles have also recalled presidential doctoring from personal experience. Moreover, the history of presidential medical treatment and emergency transfer of presidential power has been more thoroughly dealt with elsewhere. Furthermore, cliches such as "Little did I realize that I would be soon . . ." and "This was my first involvement . . . but it would not be my last" give the text the brackish flavor of banality. Still, although some passages are written at the level of a gossip column, Smith's recollections are of interest, perhaps especially the professional opinion that George Bush is in tip-top shape. If you're delayed at the airport or kept from the links on a rainy afternoon, you might enjoy this book.

William Beatty