Twenty Prominent Psychological Doctors Write to White House Physician, ‘Safety Trumps Patient Confidentiality’
Twenty Prominent Psychological Doctors Write to White House Physician, ‘Safety Trumps Patient Confidentiality’
Dr. Sean Barbabella is Urged to Conduct a Comprehensive Neuropsychiatric Examination, and to Brief Congress, Based on Independent Expert Concerns
White House physicians are historically notorious for placing presidential image and political considerations over medical ethics, and hence not only fail the public by providing incomplete information regarding a president’s true medical condition or functional capacity, but also deliver inferior care.
Throughout our history, administrations have concealed or minimized serious health problems, including the extensive disability of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the severity of Woodrow Wilson’s stroke, and the significant health deterioration experienced by John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. In several instances, physicians and close advisors released reassuring public statements while shielding the extent of illness, cognitive impairment, or functional problems from broader scrutiny.
We have experienced this especially acutely in the Trump era, when Dr. Ronny Jackson purported to be able to declare the president mentally “fit for duty,” based on a 10-minute nursing-care screen (not clearing it means nursing home-level care is probably required, which is not an appropriate level for assessing presidential fitness). Also, as an emergency physician, Jackson was not trained to perform mental fitness exams, and even if he were, he would be disqualified for his lack of independence: a White House-employed, military subordinate to the commander-in-chief cannot do a fitness assessment of his boss. I called this deception of the public, “the greatest act of medical malpractice by an individual in U.S. history”—but rather than correcting it, subsequent White House physicians have doubled down on the practice, even through the Biden era, as if repetition made it right.
What this pattern proves is that institutional conflicts between the White House physician and the president are irreconcilable. If a thorough neuropsychiatric assessment is not properly done, outside, independent experts without conflicts should have access to the president to perform an actual fitness-for-duty evaluation (fitness exams must be performed by independent, not treating, professionals, since functional exams are done for the public, not the patient or evaluee).
This is why, on May 20, 2026, twenty psychiatrists and other psychological doctors wrote the following letter to the White House physician, Dr. Sean Barbabella:
Via Certified Mail
Captain Sean P. Barbabella, D.O., Physician to the President
Dear Dr. Barbabella:
When a patient is determined to be a risk to himself or others, the physician has the right and obligation under the Tarasoff Rule to breach doctor-patient confidentiality to ensure no one is hurt. Justice Matthew Tobriner of the California Supreme Court observed in 1976: “The protective privilege ends where the public peril begins.” Safety trumps patient confidentiality.
We believe you appreciate the public’s right to know about the health of the President, as evidenced by your past statements asserting Donald Trump’s ‘excellent overall health’ and being “fully fit.” However, these public statements are not reconcilable with objective observations and the explicit concerns on the part of 36 renowned medical experts and mental health professionals, now entered into the Congressional Record, that Donald Trump displays impaired decision-making that poses an existential risk on a global level.
As experts on mental health and concerned citizens, we call on you to:
1- Respond to the expressed concerns on the part of the renowned medical professionals and others that Donald Trump’s judgement, decision-making, and relationship to reality are dangerously impaired;
2- Obtain a comprehensive neuropsychiatric examination and neuropsychological testing, in lieu of a screening test for cognitive impairment;
3- Make yourself available to brief Congress on your findings.
We recognize the unique challenges at play when the physician’s patient is the President and one’s Commander-in-chief. But that does not relieve the physician of his moral and ethical responsibilities. As the news media report that Donald Trump is to be medically evaluated in the coming days, there is no better time for the President to be thoroughly neurologically and psychiatrically evaluated as any other individual would be who presented to a doctor’s office with his pattern of behavior.
Respectfully yours,
Larry Sandberg, M.D.
Bandy X. Lee, M.D., M.Div.
[18 Additional Signatories]
—
Cc: The Honorable Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member, House Judiciary Committee
The Honorable Jim Jordan, Chairman, Chairman, House Judiciary Committee
Announcement:
Dr. Bandy X. Lee is in the process of establishing SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY. Please use the contact form to join and to help make this unprecedented effort successful. The first planning meeting will be on Friday, May 29, 2026.
Discussion about this post
https://bandyxlee.substack.com/p/twenty-psychological-doctors-write
His conduct is obviously menacing and criminal. Why do you need a diagnosis. Its obvious.
Thank you for keeping the narrative around Trump's dangerous mental issues, as well as duty to warn, alive and in print. Earlier in his presidencies I wrote to major media outlets and hosts regarding same. Hopefully you can gain traction with your warnings. I also believe that a comprehensive psych evaluation should be required of political candidates running for national office.