Mehmet Oz

Mehmet Cengiz Oz (born 11 June 1960), known professionally as Dr. Oz, is a Turkish-American heart surgeon, author and television host who has served since 2025 as the 17th Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) under President Donald Trump. ^{1 2}

He became famous through his daytime talk show The Dr. Oz Show (2009–2022), winner of ten Daytime Emmy Awards, and his popular health books — fame accompanied by sustained criticism from physicians and medical publications over his promotion of alternative medicine and claims they describe as pseudoscience. ¹

Oz was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to Turkish immigrant parents. His father, Mustafa Cavit Öz, was born in Bozkır, Konya Province, graduated first in his class from Istanbul's Cerrahpaşa Medical School in 1950, and trained in the United States, becoming chief of thoracic surgery at the Medical Center of Delaware; his mother is Suna Öz (née Atabay). He is of partial Circassian descent, has two sisters, Seval and Nazlim, grew up in Wilmington, Delaware, spent childhood summers in Turkey, and served 60 days in the Turkish Army in the early 1980s to maintain his dual citizenship. ^{1 2}

He attended Tower Hill School, graduated magna cum laude in biology from Harvard in 1982 — where he played safety on the football team and goalkeeper on the varsity water polo team — and in 1986 earned both an MD from the University of Pennsylvania's medical school and an MBA from the Wharton School. ¹

In 1986 Oz began his residency in general surgery and cardiothoracic fellowship at Presbyterian Hospital in New York under Eric Rose. In 1995 he co-founded, with Jerry Whitworth, the Cardiac Complementary Care Center, which offered alternative treatments including therapeutic touch — a practice that alarmed hospital administrators and that he dropped. ¹

In 1996 his successful heart transplant for Frank Torre, brother of Yankees manager Joe Torre, during the World Series brought him wide publicity. The centre reopened in 2000 as the Cardiovascular Institute and Integrative Medicine Program at NewYork-Presbyterian, with Oz as director. He became a professor of surgery at Columbia in 2001 and emeritus in 2018; in May 2022 Columbia cut ties with him and removed him from its website. He helped develop the MitraClip device and the left ventricular assist device (LVAD), held heart-surgery patents, and authored over 350 publications, according to the Arabic article. ^{1 2}

In 2003 the American Association for Thoracic Surgery forced him to withdraw a conference presentation and barred him from its journal for two years after, in the association's account, he changed a study's methodology from what had been agreed; his 2022 campaign said his team had extended the study's scope, and the Washington Post reported anonymous sources citing too few test subjects. ¹

In 2003 Oz hosted Second Opinion with Dr. Oz on the Discovery Channel, a five-episode series produced by his wife Lisa, through which he met Oprah Winfrey; from 2004 he appeared more than 60 times on The Oprah Winfrey Show. ¹

The Dr. Oz Show, produced by Harpo Productions and Sony Pictures Television, debuted on 14 September 2009, ran 13 seasons, won ten Daytime Emmy Awards, and aired its final episode on 14 January 2022. He fronted other programmes and guest-hosted Jeopardy! for two weeks in March 2021, drawing criticism from fans and former contestants. ¹

In 2010 he co-founded the health platform Sharecare with Jeff Arnold, and he founded HealthCorps, which promotes healthy lifestyles among teenagers. ¹

Oz's books include Healing from the Heart (1999) and the YOU series with Michael F. Roizen: YOU: The Owner's Manual (2005), YOU: On a Diet (2006), YOU: The Smart Patient (2006) and YOU: Staying Young (2007); he edited Complementary and Alternative Cardiovascular Medicine (2004) and Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery (2003). ^{1 2}

This section presents differing views as reported in the sources; it is not the museum's verdict on them.

Pseudoscience and alternative medicine: The English article states that Oz promoted pseudoscience — including alternative medicine, faith healing and paranormal beliefs — earning criticism from medical publications and physicians. ¹ At a 2014 Senate consumer-protection hearing, Senator Claire McCaskill told him that "the scientific community is almost monolithic against you", and that his melding of medical advice, news and entertainment "harms consumers"; scammers had exploited his weight-loss segments to sell products, though Oz himself was not involved in those scams. ¹

Commercial arrangements: In 2012 Oz entered an arrangement with USANA Health Sciences, a multi-level marketing company accused by critics of being a pyramid scheme, which paid him over $50 million over five years to promote its products; the New York Times criticised his role as spokesman and adviser for RealAge.com over pharmaceutical marketing. ¹ In 2024 he was accused of not disclosing his role in the supplement company iHerb when recommending its products. ¹

Columbia: In 2015 ten physicians demanded that Columbia remove Oz for what they called his "disdain for science and for evidence-based medicine"; Columbia defended his academic freedom, and Oz responded that his show offers multiple points of view "without conflict of interest". ¹

COVID-19: Oz promoted hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment in more than 25 Fox News appearances in March–April 2020 and became an informal adviser to Trump; the FDA revoked the drug's emergency-use authorisation in June 2020, and Oz owned at least $630,000 of stock in two companies that made or distributed it. ¹ In April 2020 he said on television that reopening schools "may only cost us 2 to 3 percent, in terms of total mortality", drawing backlash; he apologised, saying he had misspoken. ¹

Animal research: Under a settlement of 14 May 2004, Columbia paid a $2,000 civil fine following a PETA complaint alleging, among other things, unapproved intracardiac-injection euthanasia of dogs in Oz's research, dirty and rusty equipment and cages, and missing records; PETA alleged that he had conducted painful, unnecessary experiments on dogs. ^{2 1}

Oz was appointed in 2018 to the President's Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition, serving until 2022. ¹ In December 2021 he announced a run for the U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania; he won the Republican nomination in June 2022 with Trump's endorsement, becoming the first Muslim nominated for the U.S. Senate by a major party, and lost on 8 November 2022 to Democrat John Fetterman. ^{1 2}

After Trump's 2024 election victory he was nominated to lead the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and assumed office on 8 April 2025 as its 17th administrator, confirmed along party lines. ^{2 1}

Oz married Lisa Lemole (Lisa Oz) in 1985; they have four children, including the television host Daphne Oz, and homes in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, and Palm Beach, Florida; his net worth was reported at $100 million in 2022. ^{1 2} The English article records that he grew up in a mixed Muslim environment — his father's family traditional, his mother's secular — and the Arabic article records his stated influence from the writings of the Swedish theologian Emanuel Swedenborg. ^{1 2} Those are family background and personal interests, not an attested school; the sources give his religion as Islam without a school. ^{2 3}

• The defined sources cited above, registered in data/source/.
• The Urdu article gives his birth date as 12 June 1960; the record follows 11 June, agreed by the English and Arabic articles and Wikidata, and records the conflict.
• Later translations and edits of this article require periodic review with clear update dates.