One of the closest associates of TV’s “Dr. Oz” says the daytime star — who likes to portray himself as a working physician — is too showbiz now to be a reliable surgeon.
In a lengthy profile published in this week’s edition of the New Yorker, Dr. Eric Rose, who hired Mehmet Oz at Columbia in 1986, says he would no longer send his patients to Oz.
Rose calls Oz “a particularly fine surgeon” — but “I wouldn’t” send him patients, he told the magazine.
“In many respects, Mehmet is now an entertainer,” Rose says. “And he’s great at it. People learn a lot, and it can be meaningful in their lives.” But, “In general you want a surgeon who lives and breathes his job, somebody who is above all devoted to that,” Rose says.
Oz operates only once a week, on Thursdays, due to his demanding TV schedule.
The article, entitled “The Operator,” dissects the famed heart surgeon’s influential daytime show and the impact it’s had on the world of medicine. Among other things, the article quotes other members of the medical profession, some who criticize the show’s handling of controversial topics. One colleague calls it “medutainment . . . how are consumers to know what is real and what is magic? ”
“I think if there is any criticism you can apply to some of the stuff he talks about, it is that there is no hierarchy of evidence,” Rose says. “There rarely is with the alternatives. They have acquired a market, and that drives so much. At times, I think Mehmet does feed into that.”
Without directly answering criticism that he has lost touch with the day-to-day practice of medicine and is too accepting of unproven “alternative” medical treatments, the “Dr. Oz” show defended the star’s real-life medical work in a statement.
“The ‘Dr. Oz Show’ shoots 175 shows per year, at a pace of six shows a week,” the statement said. “As such, Dr. Oz is at the hospital roughly one day a week since before the show launched in 2009.
“Dr. Oz’s role in the hospital has been gradually moving from a daily operating surgeon to a mentor for younger surgeons. To insure the best possible care of patients, Dr. Oz assists his colleagues in cardiac surgery rather than serving as primary surgeon.”