State medical licensing records in Michigan and New York do not show Abdul el Sayed ever holding a physician’s license in either state, renewing scrutiny over how he has described himself while campaigning for the U.S. Senate.
Last month, during a debate hosted by the Council of Baptist Pastors in Detroit, El Sayed introduced himself as “a physician and epidemiologist.” The description now sits uneasily beside the licensing records and his own past remarks. In a 2022 podcast interview, he said his direct patient-care experience amounted to a four-week sub-internship at a small Manhattan hospital near the end of medical school. He joked that his role was to be “the worst doctor on the team” and compared the experience to “cosplaying a doctor.”
The records do not erase El Sayed’s medical training. He studied at the University of Michigan Medical School, earned an M.D. from Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons and later completed a doctorate in public health at Oxford University. He also taught epidemiology at Columbia before returning to Michigan to lead Detroit’s health department as executive director and health officer. But the current questions are about title, not schooling. Michigan law bars people from representing themselves in a way that would lead others to believe they are licensed or authorized to practice medicine if they do not hold a valid medical license.
This is not the first time El Sayed’s use of “physician” has drawn attention. Questions surfaced during his 2018 gubernatorial campaign, and Crain’s Detroit Business reported that he publicly identified as a doctor despite not holding a Michigan medical license. Roxie Richner said at the time that El Sayed had earned the title “doctor” “twice over.” The campaign did not directly answer inquiries about why he has publicly referred to himself as a physician.
El Sayed continues to identify himself as a physician on his LinkedIn page, even as the issue reappears in a tightly contested three-way Democratic primary with Rep. Haley Stevens and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow. That race is already close, and the title question is landing in a campaign where every detail of biography is under a magnifying glass. For El Sayed, the answer is simple and politically uncomfortable: he has the degrees, but state records do not show that he has held a medical license in Michigan or New York.
