Abdul El-Sayed, an Egyptian-American Muslim and a Democrat running for U.S. Senate in Michigan, reportedly lacks a medical license in Michigan and New York, though he has claimed he is a physician, according to a recent report.
While El-Sayed, who is running to fill Sen. Gary Peters’ (D-MI) seat, has claimed in interviews that he’s “been a doctor” for his “whole career” and also lists being a “physician” on his LinkedIn account, Politico reviewed medical records from the two states and found El-Sayed has “never been granted a medical license in those states.”
Though the outlet’s review found that he does not have a medical license from Michigan or New York, El-Sayed did attend the University of Michigan Medical School, along with the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons — which he is reported to have received “his medical degree from,” according to the outlet.
Additionally, El-Sayed is also reported to have earned “a doctorate in public health from Oxford University,” according to the outlet:
His LinkedIn profile currently says he’s a “physician,” and late last month he called himself “a physician and epidemiologist” at a Council of Baptist Pastors debate in Detroit.
But according to a review of Michigan and New York state medical records, he’s never been granted a medical license in those states. El-Sayed’s hands-on experience treating patients appears to be a short clinical rotation called a sub-internship at a small hospital in Manhattan for four weeks at the end of medical school, he told a podcast in 2022, where he said his “job was to be the, like, worst doctor on the team” and he was “cosplaying a doctor.”
The report comes as El-Sayed “has made his medical credentials a key part of his appeal” in his Senate campaign for Peters’ seat.
Roxie Richner, who serves as a spokesperson for El-Sayed, told the outlet that he “has earned the right to be called ‘doctor’ twice over.”
El-Sayed’s campaign has also explained that while the Democrat Senate candidate “was doing his sub-internship, he treated a homeless woman for a host of issues, including a head injury, AIDS and alcohol addiction.” El-Sayed later “ran into her sleeping on the subway and then realized that his calling was not to practice medicine,” according to the outlet.
“Rather than this being a gotcha attack, this is Dr. El-Sayed’s origin story,” Richner added.
In an interview from 2018 with Crain’s Detroit Business, El-Sayed, who was running to be the governor of Michigan, shared that he felt there were “a lot of ways that one serves as a physician,” according to the outlet. El-Sayed also explained that he thought “the work” he has done and continues “to do is true to the core and the ethos of medicine.”
“I think the work that I have done and I continue to do is true to the core and the ethos of medicine,” El-Sayed said. “And when I took my Hippocratic Oath, that is still an oath that I use to guide my work today.”
