“The perception in Michigan is that he is, at least at one point in his life, a licensed physician. That apparently is not the case, and it blows up a big part of his campaign.”
Despite repeatedly saying that he is a physician, far-left Democrat hopeful for US Senate from Michigan Abdul El-Sayed has little evidence to show that he has experience as a licensed medical doctor, according to a new report from Politico. El-Sayed talked up his supposed doctoral credentials in an April interview multiple times, and in a recent podcast, he stated, “I’ve been a doctor my whole career.”
He has experience as a “physician” on his LinkedIn profile and said as such in other settings. However, according to medical records reviewed by the outlet in New York and Michigan, he was never granted a medical license in either state.
The only experience that El-Sayed appears to have was a short clinical rotation internship at a Manhattan hospital for four weeks. In 2022, he said that his job was to “be the, like, worst doctor on the team” and was “cosplaying a doctor.”
“The perception in Michigan is that he is, at least at one point in his life, a licensed physician,” Democrat strategist Chris Dewitt told the outlet. “That apparently is not the case, and it blows up a big part of his campaign.”
This is despite attending the University of Michigan Medical School and getting his medical degree from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He has a doctorate in Public Health and worked as an assistant professor for a year in epidemiology at Columbia before moving over to Detroit. There, he became the executive director and health officer of the Detroit Health Department.
“He has earned the right to be called ‘doctor’ twice over,” El-Sayed spokesperson Roxie Richner said. However, the spokesperson did not answer questions regarding El-Sayed saying that he was a “physician.”
He has also said in the past that he wanted to work with systemic issues instead of working with individual patients. Despite this, he has repeatedly called himself a “physician” in multiple settings stretching back years.
“It’s a weird thing to hang your hat on in terms of a biographical detail if you never actually practiced medicine,” said Democrat Adrian Hemond, who is the CEO of political consulting firm Grassroots Midwest. “It’s not as though he hasn’t done anything with all of the fancy education that he got like running public health programming for Wayne County and for the city of Detroit. And so maybe you would lean into that, as opposed to giving people the impression that you may have practiced medicine before.”
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