Background and career
Mehmet Cengiz Oz ( mə-MET JENG-ghiz oz; Turkish: [mehˈmet dʒeɲˈɟiz øz]; born June 11, 1960), better known as Dr. Oz ( ), is an American television presenter, physician, author, educator, and government official serving as the 17th administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) since 2025. The son of Turkish immigrants, Oz was raised in Wilmington, Delaware. He is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Turkey. Oz received degrees in medicine and business from the University of Pennsylvania. He subsequently began his residency in surgery at Presbyterian Hospital in New York in 1986, co-founding its Cardiac Complementary Care Center to provide various types of alternative medicine to heart disease patients. Oz helped create new procedures and medical devices, including the MitraClip. In 2001, Oz became a professor of surgery at Columbia University, and became emeritus in 2018. In May 2022, Columbia cut ties with Oz and removed him from their website. In 2003, the Discovery Channel launched Second Opinion with Dr. Oz, while Oz also appeared as a regular guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show, making more than sixty appearances. In 2009, The Dr. Oz Show, a daily television program about medical matters and health, was launched by Winfrey's Harpo Productions and Sony Pictures Television, running for 13 seasons and winning 10 Daytime Emmy Awards. Oz's promotion of pseudoscience, including on the topics of alternative medicine, faith healing, and various paranormal beliefs, has earned him criticism from several medical publications and physicians. In 2022, Oz ran in the U.S. Senate election in Pennsylvania as a Republican; he was the first Muslim candidate for Senate to be nominated by either major party. Oz lost the election to the Democrat John Fetterman. In 2025, President Donald Trump appointed Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS); he was confirmed by the Senate along party lines.
Mehmet Oz was born on June 11, 1960, in Cleveland, Ohio, to Mustafa Cavit Öz and Suna Yıldız Öz (née Atabay), who had immigrated from Turkey. He is of partial Circassian descent. His father, born in Bozkır, Konya Province, Turkey, graduated at the top of his class from Cerrahpaşa Medical School in 1950. He then moved to the United States to join the general residency program at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, where, subsequently, Mehmet was born. Mustafa Öz trained in cardiothoracic surgery at Emory University in the Atlanta area and served as chief of thoracic surgery at the Medical Center of Delaware for several years before eventually moving back to Turkey. Oz has two sisters, Seval Oz and Nazlim Oz. Mehmet is the Turkish version of the Arabic name Muhammad. He grew up in a mixed Muslim environment, in which his father's family practiced traditional Islam, while his mother's family were secular Muslims. As a child, he spent summers in Turkey and, during the 1980s, after finishing college, he served in the Turkish Army for sixty days to maintain his dual citizenship. As his father was training at Emory, Oz and his family briefly moved to Atlanta, where his sister Seval was born, and then to Wilmington, Delaware, where he grew up. He finished Tower Hill School. and, subsequently enrolled at Harvard University, from which, in 1982, he graduated with a B.A. magna cum laude in biology. He played safety on Harvard's football team and was a goalkeeper on the men's varsity water polo team. In 1986, he obtained an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and an M.B.A from Penn's Wharton School. He was provided with the Captain's Athletic Award for leadership in college and served as class president and then student body president during his time in medical school.
Oz began his medical career with a residency in general surgery and a fellowship in cardiothoracic surgery at the Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, then affiliated with Columbia University, in 1986 after being hired by Eric Rose. In April 1995, Oz and his colleague Jerry Whitworth founded the Cardiac Complementary Care Center to provide various types of alternative medicine to heart disease patients. The publicity of Oz's work created tension with hospital administration, who expressed alarm at Oz's use of therapeutic touch, which he dropped in response to their objections. In 1996, Oz and Rose received media publicity following their work on a successful heart transplant for Frank Torre, brother of New York Yankees manager Joe Torre, during the 1996 World Series, which the Yankees won. Rose later remarked that while he did not enjoy the media attention, Oz "loved it". Meanwhile, Oz and Whitworth's professional relationship grew strained due to the attention Oz was receiving; Whitworth later recounted in an interview with Vox that he asked Oz to "stop the media circus". In 2000, Whitworth departed the Cardiac Complementary Care Center, which Oz reopened that same year as the Cardiovascular Institute and Integrative Medicine Program at the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, where he served as director. Oz became a professor at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons in 2001, a title he held until 2018, when he became emeritus. In May 2022, the institution cut ties with Oz and removed him from their website. He has helped develop numerous devices and procedures related to heart surgery, including the MitraClip and the left ventricular assist device (LVAD), and by 2015 held several patents related to heart surgery. In 2003, Oz was scheduled to present medical research on heart bypass surgery and heart-lung machines to the yearly conference of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery. Oz was forced to withdraw the presentation. He was banned from presenting to the association or publishing work in the association's medical journal for two years. Association officials said that the ban was not due to academic dishonesty, but in part due to Oz's team having changed the methodology of the study from what was agreed upon for presentation. Oz's 2022 political campaign said that the incident was due to Oz's team having extended "the scope of the work with more patients". Anonymous sources cited by The Washington Post said that another reason for the rejection was having data from too few test subjects to reach a strong conclusion. In 2010, Oz joined Jeff Arnold as co-founder of Sharecare, Inc. In 2015, a group of 10 physicians demanded Columbia remove Oz from the faculty for his alleged "disdain for science and for evidence-based medicine". Columbia defended Oz and dismissed calls for his termination, saying that they are "committed to the principle of academic freedom and to upholding faculty members' freedom of expression". Oz responded to the call, saying "I bring the public information that will help them on their path to be their best selves" and that his show provides "multiple points of view, including mine, which is offered without conflict of interest." In 2024, he was accused of not disclosing his role in the food supplement company iHerb, whose products he recommends in his various channels.
Oz made his television hosting debut with Second Opinion with Dr. Oz in 2003, aired through the Discovery Channel and produced by Oz's wife, Lisa. Through Second Opinion, Oz first met Oprah Winfrey, who appeared as an interviewee for an episode. The show would run for only five episodes, however, Oz and Winfrey cultivated a professional relationship that would lead to Oz regularly appearing as a health expert on The Oprah Winfrey Show for five seasons, making more than sixty appearances beginning in 2004. In 2009, Winfrey offered to produce a syndicated series hosted by him through her company, Harpo Productions. The Dr. Oz Show debuted on September 14, 2009, distributed by Sony Pictures Television. On The Dr. Oz Show, Oz addressed issues like Type 2 diabetes and promoted resveratrol supplements, which he claimed were anti-aging. His Transplant! television series won both a Freddie and a Silver Telly award. He was a consultant on heart transplantation for Denzel Washington's John Q. In January 2011, Oz premiered as part of a weekly advice show on OWN called "Ask Oprah's All-Stars," where he co-starred with Suze Orman and Phil McGraw to answer various questions related to their respective professions. In the 2010s, he also hosted a health segment on 1010 WINS titled "Your Daily Dose". On October 23, 2014, Surgeon Oz, showing Oz's career as a surgeon, debuted on OWN. In September 2016, during his presidential campaign, Donald Trump appeared on The Dr. Oz Show. In the lead-up to the show's taping, Oz promoted Trump's appearance with a claim that Oz would assess medical records submitted to the show by Trump and reveal his assessment on the show. CNN speculated that Trump's appearance aimed to appeal to The Dr. Oz Show's large female viewership. Oz would later be appointed to the President's Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition in 2018 during Trump's administration. Beginning on March 22, 2021, Oz guest-hosted the trivia television game show Jeopardy! for two weeks. The decision to make him a guest host was met with criticism from Jeopardy! fans and former contestants. The Dr. Oz Show aired its final episode on January 14, 2022, after over a decade on the air.
While Oz himself is not involved in medical weight loss scams, he has made statements that scammers have exploited to sell products falsely marketed for weight loss. During a 2014 Senate hearing on consumer protection, Senator Claire McCaskill said that "the scientific community is almost monolithic against you" for airing segments on weight loss products that are later cited in advertisements, concluding that Oz plays a role, intentional or not, in perpetuating these scams. McCaskill expressed concern with Oz that he was "melding medical advice, news, and entertainment in a way that harms consumers." He has been a spokesman and advisor for the website RealAge.com, which The New York Times has criticized for its pharmaceutical marketing practices. In 2012, Oz entered into an arrangement with USANA Health Sciences, a multi-level marketing dietary supplement manufacturer, which has been accused of being a pyramid scheme. Oz was paid over $50 million over five years to promote USANA products on his show. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Oz's television appearances influenced Trump's decision-making, and he became an informal advisor to the Trump administration. Oz had promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug, as a cure for COVID-19 on more than 25 Fox News broadcasts in March and April 2020. Trump claimed to be taking the drug in May 2020. In June 2020, the Food and Drug Administration revoked emergency use authorization of hydroxychloroquine, saying that it was "no longer reasonable to believe" that the drug was effective against COVID-19 or that its benefits outweighed "known and potential risks". Oz also owns at least $630,000 of stock in two companies that manufacture or distribute hydroxychloroquine, Thermo Fisher and McKesson Corporation. In April 2020, Oz appeared on Fox News with Sean Hannity and said that reopening schools in the United States might be worth the increased number of deaths it would cause. Referencing an article published in the medical journal The Lancet, Oz said, "I just saw a nice piece in The Lancet [medical journal] arguing that the opening of schools may only cost us 2–3% in terms of total mortality." Oz's comments provoked a backlash online, and he apologized, saying he had misspoken and that his goal was "to get our children safely back to school."
In 2007, it was reported that Oz had been active in his local chapter of the Republican Party of New Jersey for several years, and had donated to Republicans John McCain and Bill Frist. He supported the re-election campaign of President George W. Bush in 2004 and the candidacy of Shmuley Boteach, a rabbi who ran for Congress as a Republican in New Jersey in 2012. In 2018, Oz was appointed to the President's Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition by President Donald Trump. In 2022, President Joe Biden asked him to resign from the council because Oz's continued membership while running for the Senate would be a violation of the Hatch Act, but Oz refused; Biden subsequently removed him from the position.
