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Abdul El-Sayed (Campaign photo)
Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed attended some of the finest schools. He went to the University of Michigan Medical School and ended up getting a medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
He also has a doctorate in public health from Oxford University and served for 2 1/2 years as the Wayne County Director & Health Officer, Health, Human and Veterans Services, and before that, nearly two years as executive director and health officer of the Detroit Health Department.
But Politico reports that while he has publicly said he's a physician, "there’s overwhelming evidence that he’s had no experience as a licensed medical doctor." He has no medical license in Michigan or New York.
Politico reports:
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 perception in Michigan is that he is, at least at one point in his life, a licensed physician,” said Chris Dewitt, an unaligned Democratic strategist based in Michigan, according to Politico. “That apparently is not the case, and it blows up a big part of his campaign.”
El-Sayed spokesperson Roxie Richner said in a statement to Politico: “He has earned the right to be called ‘doctor’ twice over." The publication said she didn't respond to questions about his use of the word “physician.”
El-Sayed has said in the past that he decided not to practice medicine after treating a patient during medical school and decided he wanted to address systemic issues instead of individual patients, Politico reported.
