Mehmet Oz

Mehmet Cengiz Oz (/məˈmɛt ˈdʒɛŋɡɪz ɒz/ mə-MET JENG-ghiz oz; Turkish: [mehˈmet dʒeɲˈɟiz øz]; born June 11, 1960), also known as Dr. Oz (/ɒz/), is an American television presenter, physician, author, educator and government official serving as the 17th administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services since 2025.

The son of Turkish immigrants, Oz was raised in Wilmington, Delaware, and graduated from Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania. A dual citizen of the U.S. and Turkey, Oz completed 60 days of mandatory military training in the Turkish Army during the 1980s. He subsequently began his residency in surgery at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in 1986. In 2001, Oz became a professor of surgery at Columbia University, and later retired to professor emeritus in 2018. In May 2022, the institution dissafilliated with Oz and removed his presence from their website.

In 2003, Oprah Winfrey was the first guest on the Discovery Channel series Second Opinion with Dr. Oz, and he was 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. 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.

Oz ran in the 2022 U.S. Senate election in Pennsylvania as a conservative Republican, the first Muslim candidate for Senate to be nominated by either major party. Oz lost the election to the Democratic nominee John Fetterman.