Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed calls himself a physician, yet records show he never held a medical license in Michigan or New York.
The US Sun reported that a Politico review of medical records found no evidence El-Sayed was ever granted a license to practice medicine in either state where he built his public career.
The finding lands on a Democrat who has spent years selling voters on a doctor’s identity while preparing for a November 3 general election against former Republican congressman Mike Rogers.
El-Sayed, 41, holds an MD from Columbia and a public health doctorate earned as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. He has led big health bureaucracies in Detroit and Wayne County. What he has not done, according to that records review, is obtain the license that lets a physician legally treat patients on his own.
Politico’s review, published in May, described his hands-on clinical experience as a four-week sub-internship at a small Manhattan hospital near the end of medical school.
He did not complete a residency, the training path that prepares graduates for independent practice.
That thin clinical record did not stop the branding. In an April debate in Detroit he introduced himself as “a physician and epidemiologist.” In March he told Teamsters nurses he had “been in enough codes to watch who really does the work.” The same month, on a podcast, he said, “I’ve been a doctor my whole career.”
His own words from a 2022 podcast cut harder against the image.
He said the placement role was to be the “worst doctor on the team” and described himself as “cosplaying a doctor.”
Campaign materials have leaned on the coat and the title anyway. A 2018 gubernatorial ad put him in a white coat. A fundraising appeal last year used a similar photo. His LinkedIn profile has described him as a physician.
Michigan Democratic strategist Chris Dewitt told Politico the licensing gap hits the core of how voters see the candidate.
"The perception in Michigan is that he is, at least at one point in his life, a licensed physician,"
Dewitt said. He added:
"That apparently is not the case, and it blows up a big part of his campaign."
Political consultant Adrian Hemond made the same practical point in blunter terms.
"It’s a weird thing to hang your hat on in terms of a biographical detail if you never actually practiced medicine,"
Those are not Republican attack lines. They are assessments from people who understand Michigan Democratic politics, reacting to a biography that promised clinical authority it did not deliver.
Michigan law prohibits unlicensed people from creating the impression they are legally permitted to practice medicine. New York also restricts use of the physician title by people without medical licenses.
No charges or enforcement actions against El-Sayed appear in the reporting. The political problem is simpler. Voters heard “doctor” and “physician” for years. The records review said the license never existed in the two states tied to his career.
Bernie Sanders praised his medical background at a joint appearance. El-Sayed did not correct him. Progressive backers, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have lined up behind the Senate bid. The title traveled with the endorsements.
Spokesperson Roxie Richner answered Politico in May by pointing to the degrees, not a license to treat patients.
"He has earned the right to be called ‘doctor’ twice over,"
she said. She also argued:
"Rather than this being a gotcha attack, this is Dr. El-Sayed’s origin story, one that Michiganders are familiar with,"
Richner did not directly answer questions about the repeated use of the physician title. The campaign has stressed two doctoral degrees and a choice to pursue public health rather than a clinical practice after an encounter with a homeless patient during training.
El-Sayed faced similar credential questions in 2018 from Crain’s Detroit Business during his run for governor. He lost that Democratic primary to Gretchen Whitmer. His answers then previewed today’s defense.
"I think there’s a lot of ways that one serves as a physician," he said. He added: "I’m a physician because I have an MD, but I’m also a physician because of the work that I’ve dedicated my career to."
An MD is a real degree. Public health leadership is real work. Neither is the same thing as a licensed physician who completed residency and treated patients under state authority. The campaign keeps fusing them.
El-Sayed was born October 31, 1984, as Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed. He studied biology and political science at the University of Michigan, began medical school there, finished the MD at Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, then took a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford for a public health doctorate. He later served as an assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia.
In 2015 he returned to Michigan to lead Detroit’s Health Department after the city’s bankruptcy, with programs aimed at lead, air pollution, and childhood vision. He left in 2017 to run for governor. After the 2018 loss, he directed Wayne County’s Department of Health, Human, and Veterans Services, work the campaign ties to roughly 1.8 million residents and a medical-debt initiative meant to wipe out up to $700 million for about 300,000 Michigan residents over two years.
In 2020 he joined Joe Biden’s healthcare unity task force. He lives in Ann Arbor with his wife, Sarah, a psychiatrist, and their two daughters.
None of that résumé requires calling unlicensed public-health management the practice of medicine. He has done so anyway, on stages, in ads, and in fundraising.
El-Sayed launched the Senate bid in April 2025 for the seat opened by retiring Democrat Gary Peters. He defeated Rep. Haley Stevens in the August 2026 Democratic primary. Rogers, who lost a 2024 Senate race to Democrat Elissa Slotkin, is the Republican nominee. Their first debate was set for a Thursday during the campaign stretch.
President Donald Trump labeled El-Sayed a “RADICAL Extremist” in a social media post and criticized Fox News over its interviews with him. The licensing record is a separate issue from that fight. It is a paper trail about what the candidate claimed and what state records show.
For years the pitch was simple: trust the doctor. The records review says Michigan and New York never licensed him to practice. The clinical footprint described in that reporting is a four-week student placement. Residency never came. Democratic operatives in his own state say the gap wrecks a central biographical claim.
Degrees explain the “Dr.” in front of a name on a campus. They do not turn a short student rotation into a career of licensed patient care. Michigan voters can decide whether a Senate candidate who blurred that line is offering expertise or a costume.
Titles borrowed from a profession a candidate never fully entered are not a substitute for accountability, and voters have every right to treat them that way.
