Donald Trump’s medical letter is a sham according to an analysis by Dr. Jennifer Gunter.
Dr. Jennifer Gunter, a Canadian OB/GYN and pain medicine physician, is speaking out about Donald Trump’s medical letter in a detailed article on her website that was cross-posted on Huffington Post.
Dr. Gunter begins her piece, writing that: “Donald Trump is talking about Hillary Clinton’s health as are two doctors who have never evaluated Clinton. They have apparently diagnosed her with all kinds of ailments using the long disproven Fox-Drudge equation.”
“This attention on Clinton has renewed some interest in the letter Donald Trump released last year from his personal physician,” she continued.
Dr. Gunter then explains that while “many outlets” have picked the letter apart, she wants “to tell you as a doctor exactly how bad it is.”
I would never write anything this terrible for a Jury Duty excuse or a back to work note, never mind something that half the country (and possibly half the world) might see or could possibly end up one day in a Presidential Library!
Writing that “there are so many issues with the letter,” Dr. Gunter details 8 key issues she finds with the letter.
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“1. The header has a non working web address and doctors don’t include e-mail addresses in letters.”
As Dr. Gunter explains: “It is incredibly rare for doctors to include an e-mail address in this kind of correspondence because we don’t want the person receiving the letter (e.g. the entire press corps or the place of work or the disability insurance company) to e-mail back with questions about our patient’s health. This could lead to a HIPAA (privacy) violation. Also, gmail is not a secure method of communication, so most doctors don’t want to use it for medical information.”
“2. Lenox Hill has a Division of Gastroenterology not a Section and Dr. Bornstein isn’t listed on the website as a member.”
“Dr. Bornstein is affiliated with Lenox Hill, but he is not part of their Division of Gastroenterology. There also isn’t a Department of Medicine there is a Division of General Internal Medicine and Dr. Bornstein isn’t a member of that either,” Dr. Gunter writes, adding that: “It is also very odd for a doctor in a private practice to use their admitting privileges address under their signature if it is not the same as their practice address.”
“3. The letter starts with a typo.”
“To Whom My Concern.” As Dr. Gunter writes, we are all guilty of typos but if one was writing a letter of this import – it is not that difficult to have it checked for errors.
“4. No doctor describes tests as ‘only positive results’ or ‘astonishingly excellent.'”
Dr. Gunter elaborates, writing “’Only positive results; is gibberish. Some tests are good if they are positive and some are bad if they are positive. […] And while we’re at it doctors just don’t say “laboratory test results” that sounds like something on a soap opera.
“5. Doctors don’t say “’test score’ we just give the results.”
And as Dr. Gunter points out: “A test score is something that happens at the DMV.”
“6. How did Dr. Bornstein test Donald Trump’s strength and stamina?”
“Did he have him bench press in the office? Do a treadmill test?” Dr. Gunter asks, adding that “Doctors just don’t typically write vague, quasi-medical things in letters. I’ve also never heard of a stamina test. An internist might test muscle strength as part of a physical exam, but the results are graded 0-5 and 5 is not secret code for extraordinary it’s code for normal.”
“7. The healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”
Noting that “Every news site has pointed out how ridiculous this is,” Dr. Gunter explains that “Dr. Bornstein is not a medical historian who runs a Presidential health archives and obviously Washington and Lincoln never had their PSA checked for comparison. The first blood pressure cuff was invented in 1881, so yeah.”
8. There is no useful health information.
As Dr. Gunter explains: “Someone with Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s could have a normal blood pressure, normal PSA, take 81 mg aspirin and be on a “low dose” (we don’t know the exact dose or type) statin. So could someone with diabetes or someone who had a heart stent placed last year or who had a stroke four years ago.”
Dr. Gunter goes on to discuss a few anomalies with the letter that don’t concern her and concludes, writing:
After this was posted someone mentioned that Dr. Jacob Bornstein died in 2010.
Was an old doctor’s letter used as a template with the person copying the letterhead not knowing or remembering that the elder Dr. Bornstein had passed away? Is this Dickensian six year old letterhead with the name of the deceased still at the top?
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