Hiral Tipirneni dresses in scrubs, wraps a stethoscope around her neck, and looks seriously at medical charts in her latest campaign ad. It looks less like political messaging and more like something out of “ER,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” or any number of the glamorized medical soaps that dominate prime time.
But there is a glaring flaw in Tipirneni’s ensemble: She is wearing an Apple Watch.
That game-changing technological timepiece was unveiled in 2015, and that’s bad news for the Democrat running for a vacant House seat in Arizona’s special congressional election. Tipirneni hasn’t seen a single patient since 2007.
In her new ad, @hiral4congress (candidate in #AZ08) wears scrubs, a stethoscope, and an Apple Watch.
Apple came out with the original watch in 2015.
Tipirneni hasn’t treated a patient since 2007. pic.twitter.com/FCsiNRIJLq
— Philip Wegmann (@PhilipWegmann) April 17, 2018
As local ABC15 reports, Tipirneni settled a malpractice lawsuit months before hanging up her stethoscope. She was sued in 2001 by a Phoenix woman who claimed that Tipirneni failed to give her a tetanus shot while treating a leg wound. According to that woman’s lawyer, she contracted tetanus, slipped into a coma, and later suffered kidney failure as a result.
Tipirneni hasn’t practiced in an ER for over a decade, a decision she says was the result of her decision to pursue cancer research, not her fear of lawsuits.
“I took a little time off after our nephew passed away, and it was after that, shortly after that, I decided to change my pathway a little bit,” Tipirneni told ABC15. She worked as a scientific review officer for a Virginia company a role she describes as a “cancer research advocate.”
Republican operatives have questioned the authenticity of her medical-political push.
“It’s disingenuous,” a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee told Roll Call. “Hiral wants voters to believe she’s something other than who she really is: a former physician sued for malpractice who turned to a cushy job making millions hawking Obamacare instead.”
Her campaign dismissed that criticism as frivolous. “Heaven forbid she’s been out there trying to cure cancer, that she hasn’t been wearing a lab coat every day,” Tipirneni communications director, Jason Kimbrough, told Roll Call.
To be sure, no one should criticize any doctor for how they dress while practicing medicine in the lab, at the hospital, or even on paid television advertisements. But while the lab coat is certainly optional, the Apple Watch just isn’t accurate.
