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Setting Precedents

Jefferson Has a Long History of Caring for U.S. Presidents

When shot's rang out on March 30, 1981, in front of the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., Secret Service agents pushed President Ronald Reagan into the limousine and rushed him to George Washington University Hospital where doctors stood by ready to remove a bullet lodged near his heart. Three members of that life-saving team were Jefferson alumni. Joseph M. Giordano, MD ’67, who recently passed away, led the surgical team, with the assistance of surgical resident Kathleen F. Cheyney, MD ’74, and anesthesiologist Manfred W. Lichtmann, MD ’63.

That team followed in the footsteps of many Jefferson alumni and faculty in the service of the United States presidents, stretching back as far as Thomas Jefferson himself.

Left to right: Joseph M. Giordano, MD ’67, Kathleen F. Cheyney, MD ’74, Manfred W. Lichtmann, MD ’63
Robley Dunglison, MD

The nation’s third president enlisted English physician Robley Dunglison, MD, for a medical professor position at the newly established University of Virginia in 1824. He quickly became a close friend and personal physician to Thomas Jefferson.

Dunglison was later appointed professor of the Institutes of Medicine and Medical Jurisprudence at what was then Jefferson Medical College, where he served from 1836 to 1868. He was also dean of the medical school from 1854 to 1868. Upon retirement, he continued to serve as professor emeritus.

Dunglison, known as the “Father of American Physiology,” was also the personal physician to James Madison and James Monroe, and consulted in the treatment of Andrew Jackson.

Jonathan Messersmith Foltz, MD 1830

The first official White House physician was Jonathan Messersmith Foltz, MD 1830, during the administration of President James Buchanan.

Foltz, a surgeon in the U.S. Navy who served in the Mexican–American War and American Civil War, had served as health advisor to President James K. Polk.

Buchanan and Foltz briefly met when Buchanan was a congressman and President Andrew Jackson recommended that the doctor be appointed assistant naval surgeon. They met again when Buchanan was secretary of state.

When Buchanan became president, Foltz took on the role of presidential physician, even living at the White House for a while.

Left to right: John Hill Brinton, MD 1852, Jacob Mendes Da Costa, MD 1852, Samuel Weissel Gross, MD 1857, George C. Lippincott, MD 1875.

John Hill Brinton, MD 1852, was a brigadier surgeon in the American Civil War who later served as a member of General Ulysses S. Grant’s staff. Brinton succeeded the iconic Samuel D. Gross, MD 1828, as chair of surgery at Jefferson.

Brinton’s brother-in-law, Jacob Mendes Da Costa, MD 1852, also tended to Grant. The physician was known for identifying Da Costa’s syndrome (also known as soldier’s heart), an anxiety disorder that he first observed in soldiers in the American Civil War. The disorder would later be renamed posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Da Costa was a respected professor and lecturer at Jefferson.

In 1884, DaCosta was visiting a friend in Long Branch, New Jersey, when Grant, who was staying at his summer home there, noticed a stinging throat pain. The friend asked DaCosta to examine Grant. A heavy cigar smoker, the former president was subsequently diagnosed with throat cancer, which led him to another Jefferson physician, Samuel Weissel Gross, MD 1857. Gross, the son of Samuel D. Gross, was a renowned surgeon at Jefferson who was known for his use of antiseptic surgery and radical surgery in cancer cases.

Sometime before his death in 1885, Grant embarked on a cruise around the world with his family. George C. Lippincott, MD 1875, had the privilege of accompanying the Grants as their family physician.

The Oneida Yacht on which W.W. Keen operated on President Grover Cleveland in 1893.
William W. Keen Jr., MD 1862

Perhaps one of the most famous Jefferson graduates was William W. Keen Jr., MD 1862, renowned for being a surgeon, innovator, and part of a team that performed a clandestine operation on a president on a yacht.

In 1893, Keen operated on President Grover Cleveland to remove a verrucous carcinoma (a type of oral cancer). The surgery was performed surreptitiously aboard the yacht Oneida while it sailed up the East River in New York City. Keen, who served in the American Civil War, was a member of the medical college’s faculty from 1866 to 1907. He gained worldwide attention for his pioneering procedures, including drainage of the cerebral ventricles and several successful removals of large brain tumors.

Aside from Cleveland, Keen served three other U.S. presidents or their families.

In 1909, President William Howard Taft requested a consultation with Keen for his sister-in-law, who had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. The outcome of the consultation and any treatments remains unknown.

Keen also had a relationship with President Woodrow Wilson and several members of Wilson’s family before he entered the White House. Wilson had cardiovascular disease and sought a consultation with the renowned physician. The two continued a professional and personal relationship, and in 1912, Keen operated on future first lady Ellen Wilson. A few years later, he also operated on two of Wilson’s daughters at Jefferson.

In August 1921, Franklin Delano Roosevelt had just begun a summer vacation in New Brunswick, Canada, when he developed paralysis of the lower extremities that progressed to his trunk and part of his hand.

A local physician called Keen, who was then 84 years old, to examine the president. Keen first diagnosed the issue as a blood clot in the spinal cord. He later changed the diagnoses to a lesion on the spinal cord. Later, another specialist made the correct diagnosis of polio.

Keen continued to write and lecture throughout his retirement until he died in 1932 at the age of 95.

Edward P. Davis, MD 1888

Thomas Leidy Rhoads, MD 1893, served in the Spanish-American War and World War I. He was the commanding chief surgeon of the American Expeditionary Forces in France, and received the Distinguished Service Medal at the close of the war. He later became the surgeon in charge of Walter Reed General Army Hospital.

President William Howard Taft selected Rhoads as his personal physician while he was in the White House. Rhoads also became Taft’s aide de camp when the man holding that position died in the Titanic disaster.

In addition to Keen, three other Jeffersonians tended to President Woodrow Wilson and the Wilson family — Francis X. Dercum, MD, John C. Da Costa, MD 1885, and Edward P. Davis, MD 1888.

Francis Xavier Dercum, MD, was a neurologist who specialized in the treatment of nervous and mental disorders. He joined Jefferson in 1892 when the medical college established a chair in nervous and mental diseases; he was the first to hold the position, and he remained as emeritus after retiring.

When President Wilson collapsed in the White House in October 1919, Dercum was called to treat him. He diagnosed Wilson with thrombosis but advised him to remain in office as an incentive to recover.

John C. Da Costa, MD 1885 (no relation to Jacob Mendes Da Costa), was the successor to Keen as the chair of the Department of Surgery in 1907 and in 1910, became the first Samuel D. Gross Professor.

During World War I, Da Costa served as a junior lieutenant in the Navy and eventually rose to the rank of commander. In 1919, he sailed on The George Washington on a special mission to tend to an ailing Wilson during negotiations for the peace treaty of World War I and the League of Nations.

While Edward P. Davis, MD 1888, did not attend to Wilson, in 1919 he delivered one of the president’s grandchildren, Woodrow Wilson Sayre. Davis, who had been a classmate of Wilson at Princeton, served as professor of Obstetrics from 1898 to 1925.

Dwight D. Eisenhower and Howard McCrum Snyder, MD 1905

Howard McCrum Snyder, MD 1905, forged a lasting bond with Dwight D. Eisenhower during World War II. Commissioned into the U.S. Army Medical Corps in 1908, Snyder served 25 years in various posts before becoming Eisenhower’s personal physician in Europe during the war.

Though technically retired because of his age in 1945, he continued caring for Eisenhower and his family, including treating Mamie Eisenhower for pneumonia.

Recalled to duty in 1951 as a special adviser at Allied Powers Europe, Snyder later joined Eisenhower on the campaign trail. Following Eisenhower’s 1953 inauguration, Snyder was appointed physician to the President, serving throughout his administration.

As a leader in healthcare, education, and research for more than 200 years, it is not surprising that Jefferson has been at the forefront of caring for the leaders of the country regardless of their political party. Just before President Ronald Reagan was taken into surgery following the assassination attempt, he joked with the doctors: “I hope you are all Republicans.” Giordano — a staunch Democrat — famously replied: “Today, Mr. President, we are all Republicans.”

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