'Cosplaying a doctor': Senate hopeful's old quote undercuts his 'physician' pitch

Abdul El-Sayed, one of the Democratic candidates for Senate in Michigan, is facing accusations of misleading voters by referring to himself as a "physician" without meaningful experience actually practicing medicine with real patients, Politico reported on Tuesday.

"There’s no doubt that El-Sayed has top-notch medical credentials," noted the report. "He attended the University of Michigan Medical School and ended up receiving his medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He has a doctorate in public health from Oxford University and worked as an assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia for a year before moving to Detroit to be executive director and health officer of the Detroit Health Department."

All of that said, the report continued, El-Sayed has made statements on the campaign trail suggesting he was a licensed physician who treated patients, which doesn't appear to be the case.

"This April, he gave an interview to a local TV journalist where he talked up his credentials as a physician multiple times. In March, he told a group of Teamsters nurses that he had 'been in enough codes to watch who really does the work' and said that same month on a podcast that 'I’ve been a doctor my whole career,'" said the report. "But according to a review of Michigan and New York state medical records, he’s never been granted a medical license in those states."

The extent of El-Sayed’s time actually practicing medicine with real patients, according to the report, "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.'"

El-Sayed's campaign has strenuously objected to the Politico article, with his spokesperson saying, “He has earned the right to be called ‘doctor’ twice over,” but not answering questions about El-Sayed's use of the word "physician" to describe himself.

This comes amid a crowded primary battle to replace outgoing Democratic Sen. Gary Peters; El-Sayed's main Democratic opponents are Rep. Haley Stevens and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow.