Joe Biden almost died after suffering an aneurysm while serving in the Senate, but the surgeon who operated on his brain says that the incident shouldn’t hold him back in his pursuit of the presidency.

Dr. Neal Kassell, the renowned neurosurgeon who operated on Biden, said he’s confident that Biden is “totally in the clear,” and joked that he believed the surgery had even “made him better than how he was.”

“Joe Biden of all of the politicians in Washington is the only one that I’m certain has a brain, because I have seen it,” Kassell said. “That’s more than I can say about all the other candidates or the incumbents.”

Apart from Kassell’s endorsement of his brain health, little has been publicly disclosed about Biden’s overall health since 2008, when he released medical records as a vice presidential candidate. Biden would be 78 on Inauguration Day, and he still calls up Kassell every year on the anniversary of his surgery.