Abdul El-Sayed not a real physician, is doctor in Jill Biden sense of the word

U.S. Senate candidate Adbul El-Sayed.

Abdul El-Sayed, the Democrat running against Mike Rogers for a Michigan seat in the U.S. senate, regularly refers to himself as a doctor or physician on the campaign trail and on social media, however he's not a practicing medical doctor, is not licensed as a doctor, and, at best, is a doctor in the Jill Biden sense of the word.

According to The Detroit News, El-Sayed has boasted that if elected in November, he would become the only Democrat in the senate who is a medical doctor. The problem, The Detroit News reported, is that he's nothing of the sort. While Al-Sayed did graduate from Columbia University Medical School in New York, he has never been licensed to work as a doctor, meaning he hasn't passed the exams required to obtain a medical license. As Nolan Finley of The Detroit News points out, El-Sayed is not licensed to practice medicine in Michigan or anywhere else. 

El-Sayed holds a PhD in epidemiology, which also does not give him the proper credentials to treat patients as a physician. Despite these facts, El-Sayed goes to great lengths to perpetrate a myth that he's some sort of practicing medical physician, going so far as to describe himself as a "physician" and "epidemiologist" on his official LinkedIn account, in addition to listing his "He/Him" pronouns. On his X account, he presents himself as "Dr. Abdul El-Sayed" and describes himself as a "doctor," although on that platform he's careful to omit his pronouns.

Despite the fact that he's not an actual physician, supporters on the left, including high-profile people like Bernie Sanders, constantly refer to him as a "doctor" and suggest his being a physician makes him some sort of expert when he calls for Medicare for all. And many media outlets on the left routinely describe him as a doctor, helping to build the myth.

Perhaps surprisingly, even far-left broadcaster Medi Hasan confronted El-Sayed over the summer about why he presents himself as a physician when he's not really one. El-Sayed brushed aside the questions and said, "I would say I was the health director for the city of Detroit." Watch that exchange below.