# Why El-Sayed shifted from medicine to public health

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/why-el-sayed-shifted-from-medicine-to-public-health/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Abdul El-Sayed](https://realalpha.app/people/abdul-el-sayed/) · Abdul El-Sayed is a Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Michigan. · Rebuilt Detroit’s Health Department, restructured Wayne County’s health agency, and authored Medicare for All: A Citizen’s Guide.
- Host: [Jon Stewart](https://realalpha.app/people/jon-stewart/) · The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
- Show: The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart
- Episode: [Abdul El-Sayed’s Progressive Policy Prescription | The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart](https://realalpha.app/v/fmodf-lNGEE/), Oct 21, 2026
- Moment: 15:05 to 17:43 of the episode (3 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/why-el-sayed-shifted-from-medicine-to-public-health/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/fmodf-lNGEE/?t=905

## Quote

> “**We guaranteed glasses for kids**. We took on corporate polluters. We made prescription drugs less expensive.”
> — [Abdul El-Sayed](https://realalpha.app/people/abdul-el-sayed/) at [16:49](https://realalpha.app/v/fmodf-lNGEE/?t=1009) · The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart

## Takeaways

1. He says he wanted to address systems that keep people ill.
2. He cites glasses for children and lower prescription costs.
3. He says his programs eliminated $100 million to $700 million in medical debt.

## About this segment

Abdul El-Sayed says he turned toward public health after seeing how systems create illness and obstruct care. He points to local programs as the kind of upstream work he wanted to do.

From “Abdul El-Sayed’s Progressive Policy Prescription | The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart”, Oct 21, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/fmodf-lNGEE/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[15:18](https://realalpha.app/v/fmodf-lNGEE/?t=918) ass. You know, you've reflected a lot on how what you like about politics is somewhat what you like about medicine in that it's kind of prescriptive. You're getting people are telling you the symptoms of the difficulties they're having. You're diagnosing what it might be and giving them a prescriptive or a remedy that they might be able to use to ease that pain, which makes me think to myself, why didn't you then become a doctor? Is it because it sounds like something that is very much a process embedded in the way you think.

[16:00](https://realalpha.app/v/fmodf-lNGEE/?t=960) So what was the, why did you make the decision to pivot from that? So, you know, when I graduated medical school, I'd done a PhD in public health and finished medical school. And I'm in my final year of medical school. And I'm starting to realize that so many of the challenges I'm trying to face sit downstream of a set of systems that make people sick in the first place and keep us from actually healing them.

[16:22](https://realalpha.app/v/fmodf-lNGEE/?t=982) And it's not to say that you can't get good healthcare in the healthcare system. It's just that you have to be a very particular kind of person to get good, uncomplicated healthcare. And, you know, I really, I went to medical school in large part because I could go 15 hours to my family's native Egypt or 15 minutes from where I grew up and I crossed 10 years difference in life expectancy. And in order to solve those problems, I realized that you needed to be the kind of doctor that worked on the system and not just in the system.

[16:46](https://realalpha.app/v/fmodf-lNGEE/?t=1006) And so a lot of what I've tried to do has been around, you know, addressing the circumstances in society that keep people ill or stop them from getting the health care they need. I went into public health, rebuilt Detroit's health department, led Wayne County's Department of Health, Human and Veteran Services. We guaranteed glasses for kids. We took on corporate polluters. We made prescription drugs less expensive. We eliminated $100 million up to $700 million when the program's all over of medical debt. We made sure that after Flint, kids weren't drinking lead in their schools. That's the kind of work that my career has been about. I wrote the book on Medicare for All. So in some respects, it's like saying, well, you know, do I treat the problem one patient at a time frustratedly? Or do I try to go upstream