Mehmet Oz

Mustafa was born in Bozkır, a small town in southern Turkey, and graduated at the top of his class at Cerrahpaşa Medical School in 1950 and moved to the United States to join the general residency program at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, where Mehmet was born.

Mustafa trained in cardiothoracic surgery at Emory University in Atlanta and was chief of thoracic surgery at the Medical Center of Delaware for several years before moving back to Turkey.

Suna ( Atabay), who comes from a wealthy Istanbul family, is the daughter of a pharmacist with Circassian (Shapsug) descent on her mother's side.

Oz has said, "My mother is Circassian, her great grandmother was brought from the Caucasus to Istanbul as a concubine in Sultan Mahmud II's harem".

After Mahmud died, she married an imam.

Oz has two sisters, Seval Öz and Nazlim Öz.

Oz grew up in a mixed Muslim environment where his father's family practiced more traditional Islam, while his mother's family were more secular Muslims.

As a child, he spent summers in Turkey and served in the Turkish Army for 60 days after college to maintain his dual citizenship.

Oz was educated at Tower Hill School in Wilmington, Delaware.

Mehmet Cengiz Öz (born June 11, 1960), also known as Dr. Oz, is an American television personality, physician, author, professor emeritus of cardiothoracic surgery at Columbia University, and former political candidate.

The son of Turkish immigrants, Oz was raised in Wilmington, Delaware, and graduated from Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania.

Mehmet Oz was born in 1960 in Cleveland, Ohio, to Suna and Mustafa Öz, who had emigrated from Konya Province, Turkey.

Oz has said that he was named after Mehmed the Conqueror, the Ottoman sultan who conquered Constantinople in 1453.

A dual citizen of the U.S. and Turkey, Oz served in the Turkish Army during the 1980s for 60 days of mandatory training, specifically for citizens who reside in foreign countries, to maintain his Turkish citizenship.

In 1982, he received his undergraduate degree in biology magna cum laude at Harvard University.

He played safety on Harvard's football team and was a goalkeeper on the men's varsity water polo team.

He subsequently began his residency in surgery at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in 1986.

In 1986, he obtained MD and MBA degrees from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Penn's Wharton School.

He was awarded the Captain's Athletic Award for leadership in college and was class president and then student body president during medical school.

Oz began his medical career with a residency 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.

In 2001, Oz became a professor of surgery at Columbia University, and later retired to professor emeritus in 2018.

Oz became a professor at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons in 2001, a title he held until 2018, when his current title changed to professor emeritus.

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 2003, Oz was scheduled to present medical research regarding heart bypass surgery and heart-lung machines to the yearly conference of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery, but the presentation was withdrawn and for two years he was banned from further presentations to the association or publishing work in the association's medical journal.

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 due to having data from too few test subjects to reach a strong conclusion.

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 a number of medical publications and physicians.

Oz ran in the 2022 U.S. Senate election in Pennsylvania as a conservative Republican.

He was the first Muslim candidate to be nominated by either major party for U.S. Senate.

Oz lost the election to the Democratic nominee Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman.

In 2010, Oz joined Jeff Arnold as co-founder of Sharecare, Inc.

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 a number of patents related to heart surgery.