10 Things You Should Know About Casey Means, Trump’s New Nominee for “America’s Doctor”

She talks to trees, promotes shrooms, and doesn’t have a medical license. What could go wrong?

Last week Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. nominated wellness influencer Casey Means (826k followers on Instagram) for U.S. Surgeon General, causing an eruption of cheers from most of MAHA and utter confusion from the many Americans who thought you should be a licensed physician in order to hold the position of America’s top doctor.

Means is indeed a Stanford-trained doctor. She began a residency in otolaryngology (ear, nose, and throat surgery) at Oregon Health & Science University but left the program in 2018 before completing it. According to Means, she stepped away because she was disillusioned with conventional medicine; former colleagues have said the decision was also linked to stress and burnout. Her medical license officially lapsed in 2024, and she has not returned to clinical practice since leaving residency.

The thing about Means, and MAHA in general is there is some truth at the core of their arguments. Indeed, less sugar, fewer ultra-processed foods, more emphasis on root-cause medicine and metabolic health are important. Others—like suggesting mushrooms (and abandoning feminism) helped her find a romantic partner, or questioning whether vaccines cause autism—are fringe at best and disqualifying at worst.

One question I’m really interested in: What should the qualifications be for the Surgeon General of the United States?

What does it mean to be "the nation’s doctor"? Should the person in that role have an active medical license? Government experience? Public health training? Clinical leadership? Or is a large platform and anti-establishment message enough?

Until the pandemic, I’m not sure I could have told you the name of our surgeon general. The first person Trump nominated this administration was pulled, ostensibly, because she lied about where she went to medical school. But her support of vaccines during the pandemic was also fracturing the MAHA community.

You may know the name of the previous Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, who is also an author and is fairly well known for his thoughtful opinion pieces and public commentary. Dr. Murthy authored the New York Times Bestselling Book, Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World and he was a practicing doctor before he took the government post. He completed his internal medicine residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and later joined Harvard Medical School as faculty in internal medicine.

Here’s a list of previous Surgeon Generals from an HHS site that doesn’t appear to have been updated to include Dr. Murthy’s second time at the post.

We now live in a world of personal branding where clout and eyeballs are often worth as much (and sometimes more) than credentials. Where the attention economy has staffed the administration with Fox news personalities. I VERY much knew who Casey Means was before she was nominated, I had seen her videos about seed oil and organic foods come across my feed. But I didn’t know of her beyond the talking points, so here are 11 Things You Should Know About Casey Means

1. She co-founded a wellness tech company
   In 2019, she launched Levels, a startup that sells continuous glucose monitors and collects user data for metabolic health tracking. Her investors include people like Marc Andreessen, a Trump Administration advisor. Concerns have been raised about how the data is being used by the company.
   

2. While she is not a trained nutritionist, she promotes metabolic health as preventive care
   The book she wrote with her brother, a former Pharmaceutical industry lobbyist, Good Energy focuses on metabolic dysfunction. She argues that improving blood sugar regulation can enhance mental, physical, and spiritual well-being. Like many influencers she also sells wellness “courses” and supplements. Course example here.
   

3. She’s said abandoning feminism and psychedelic therapy helped her find love at 35
   In her newsletter she detailed the many steps she took to find love, which includes working with a spiritual medium, doing mushrooms, and deconstructing her “identity as a ‘feminist’” to “move towards embodying a completely different and greater power: the divine feminine. I would go from being angry at men, “the patriarchy,” and wanting “equality” in a relationship, to being committed to working as a dynamic team with a powerful man to build a beautiful life and create harmony by embodying different roles.”