Reagan Picks Army Colonel to Be His Personal Doctor

President Reagan has selected Army Col. John E. Hutton, who has served as assistant presidential physician for two years, to succeed Dr. T. Burton Smith as the President’s physician, the White House announced today.

Hutton, a vascular surgeon, is a former chief of surgery at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington. He also serves as a clinical professor at George Washington University Medical School and the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences. He is 55.

With the appointment of Hutton to succeed Smith, who is going home to California after two years as Reagan’s personal physician, Reagan is returning to the usual presidential practice of having a military physician for his doctor.

Reagan is accompanied by a doctor whenever he leaves the White House, and most of his medical care, including surgery last year for colon cancer, has been provided at Bethesda Naval Hospital.