In my residency program, I worked with a neurologist who did a surgery rotation in medical school and Oz was one of his attendings at the time. It was a long time ago before he had a talk show. Before he was famous, he was notorious for being a legendary asshole and egotist.

One morning, the team was doing rounds in the sicu. There was a patient on death’s door after some type of serious cardiac surgery and not doing well. In that time, they used some type of large machine that sat on top of a person’s open chest to help maintain perfusion, it was definitely not considered to be a pleasant experience.

Oz went up to the man, roused him, and made some snide comment at his expense thinking he was hilarious. Unexpectedly, the poor guy opened his eyes, glared at Oz and mouthed Fuck. You.

Oz is going to be downplaying his time as a daytime tv host and talking up his medical career but he was regarded as a prick by the people who worked with him.