The woman in the photo has not been crowned youngest doctor by Guinness World Records. The last person to officially hold the title was a male US doctor
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on February 6, 2020 at 13:43
- Updated on February 7, 2020 at 17:21
- 3 min read
- By Amanuel NEGUEDE, AFP Ethiopia
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The Facebook and Twitter posts that we’ve archived here, here, here and here feature a photo of a young woman alongside claims that she’s the world’s youngest doctor, named as Iqbal El-Assaad.
One of the Facebook post alleged the “20-year-old Palestinian girl became the youngest doctor in the World Guinness record in 2013”.
The post has had more than 274,000 Facebook interactions, including 88,360 shares, since it was first shared on January 3, according to social media analysis tool Crowd Tangle.
Another Facebook post (see below) shows a screenshot of a tweet captioned “I cover my hair, not my brain, judge me by what’s in my head, not on my head -- Eqbal a 14-year-old Palestinian girl entered the Guinness Book of records for studying to becoming the youngest doctor (sic)”.
The post links out to an article (see below) published by The National, an English-language news outlet based in Abu Dhabi.
It features an interview with a young woman called Iqbal Al Assaad who according to The National became the youngest ever medical graduate from Cornell University's Qatar branch in 2013 -- the same year that the misleading posts claim she was crowned the world’s youngest doctor.
The story uses the same photo that has been circulating in the recent false claims. The caption identifies the picture as a handout from the Weill Cornell Medical College and says it shows Assaad during her graduation ceremony in Doha in 2013.
AFP tried calling Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar but was unable to get hold of someone.
Guinness World Records rejects claim
Jessica Spillane, a spokeswoman for Guinness World Records, told AFP that Assaad was not part of its record holders.
Moreover, she said the “Youngest Physician” category had been closed because certain qualifications cannot be "standardized internationally”, but was unable to specify when it was dropped.
However, Spillane confirmed that the last official record holder had been US ophthalmologist Balamurali Ambati who graduated from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City on May 19, 1995 - a couple of months before his 18th birthday.
What we know about Assaad
An online Google search of Assaad's name led to a Harvard-run social networking website, which featured her profile saying she was a clinical fellow in paediatrics at the Boston's Children's hospital.
AFP called the hospital and spoke to several nurses who confirmed that Assaad worked there, but has so far been unable to talk with her directly her.
A further online search showed that the Dubai-based news site Arabian Business named Assaad as one of the "100 Most Powerful Arab Women" in 2015.
She also ranked 82nd on a list of Arab thought leaders on the Global Influence website in 2016.
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