Far-left Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has built a political brand around calling himself a physician, yet public records show no evidence he has ever been licensed to practice medicine.
According to The Post Millennial, El-Sayed has repeatedly invoked his supposed medical credentials on the campaign trail and in media appearances, even declaring on a recent podcast, Ive been a doctor my whole career. In an April interview, he again emphasized his status as a doctor, reinforcing an image of himself as a practicing medical professional rather than an academic or bureaucrat.
On his LinkedIn profile and in various public settings, El-Sayed describes his experience as that of a physician, a term most voters reasonably associate with a licensed, practicing doctor. Yet medical licensing records reviewed in both New York and Michigan show he has never been granted a medical license in either state, raising serious questions about how he has chosen to present his background.
The only hands-on clinical experience that appears in his record is a brief four-week clinical rotation at a Manhattan hospital, a standard part of medical training rather than actual practice. Even El-Sayed himself once downplayed that stint, saying in 2022 that his job was to be the, like, worst doctor on the team and that he was cosplaying a doctor, language that now stands in stark contrast to his campaign rhetoric.
Democrat strategist Chris Dewitt acknowledged the disconnect between perception and reality, telling the outlet, The perception in Michigan is that he is, at least at one point in his life, a licensed physician. Dewitt added pointedly, That apparently is not the case, and it blows up a big part of his campaign.
El-Sayed did attend the University of Michigan Medical School and later earned a medical degree from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, credentials that would allow him to pursue licensure had he chosen to do so. He also obtained a doctorate in Public Health and briefly served as an assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia before moving to Detroit to become executive director and health officer of the Detroit Health Department.
Campaign spokesperson Roxie Richner has tried to bolster his image, insisting, He has earned the right to be called doctor twice over. However, Richner notably declined to address the more specific and politically potent claim that El-Sayed is a physician, a term that implies direct responsibility for treating patients.
El-Sayed has previously said he preferred to tackle systemic issues rather than care for individual patients, a choice that aligns more with public health administration than clinical medicine. Despite that stated preference, he has repeatedly labeled himself a physician in speeches, interviews, and written profiles stretching back years, blurring the line between academic qualifications and real-world practice.
Even some Democrats are uneasy with that framing, with strategist Adrian Hemond remarking, Its a weird thing to hang your hat on in terms of a biographical detail if you never actually practiced medicine. Hemond further observed, Its not as though he hasnt 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.
For voters in President Trumps second term who are already skeptical of progressive elites inflating rsums and trading on titles, El-Sayeds pattern of self-description underscores a broader concern about honesty and accountability on the left. At a time when trust in institutions is fragile, a candidate who cannot clearly and candidly distinguish between being a licensed physician and holding academic degrees in medicine and public health may find that the credibility gap he created is far harder to treat than any policy problem he claims he wants to solve.
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