Dr. Cheney holds a PhD in physics from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and is a graduate of Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia, where he also completed his internal medicine residency.

He is a board certified internist, and since 1990 has headed the Cheney Clinic. Dr. Cheney has been interested in many aspects of ME/CFS, and is author or co-author of numerous publications and scientific presentations in a range of fields relevant to the illness.

Most recently, following a successful heart transplant in 2003, Dr. Cheney has been engaged in investigating the cardiac function of CFS patients, using Impedance Cardiography and Doppler Echocardiography. According to his paper presented at the 2007 IACFS/ME conference, "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patients exhibit evidence of diastolic dysfunction at a level well above that reported for control populations of the same age. Energy dependent diastolic dysfunction would appear to be a hallmark of CFS and supports the hypothesis that CFS is a syndrome of cellular energy deficiency."