Out of Patients with Matthew Zachary

Welcome to Part Two my conversation with Dr. David Langer , Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at Lenox Hill Hospital, Co-Founder of Playback Health, and star of the critically acclaimed Netflix series, Lenox Hill. If you’ve listened to Part One — and I hope you did because it’d be weird if you hadn’t — there is such richness into David’s humanity and approach to medicine beyond the biolog...

Some of you may have heard about the acclaimed Netflix series, Lenox Hill. If you haven’t, you’ve to to check it out. Four doctors at New York's storied Lenox Hill Hospital balance their personal lives and their dedication to their patients in this documentary series. And one of those doctors joins me today. Dr. David Langer , Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at Lenox Hill Hospital...

Today, a frenetic BONUS episode with my dear friend of 30+ years, the always eclectic, impossibly talented Half-Greek/Half-Italian spitfire no BS unicorn that is Elura Nanos . As two exasperated Gen-X parents of young kids, we needed a COVID-19 venting session to outgas our egregious misgivings with the endless ignominious malfeasance on the part of the school systems to figure out what the h...

Get ready to learn a lot on today’s show. For example, did you know there are Board Certified Patient Advocates? You heard that. And it’s not what you think. It’s better. Joining me to discuss this — and OH SO MUCH MORE — is Dr. Grace Cordovano , the CEO of Enlightening Results and the Co-Founder of Unblock Health. I’m at my best when I feel like the dumbest guy in the room by learning things I ha...

Today on the show, what happens when a legacy, award-winning NPR radio producer/young adult cancer survivor is interviewed by a gracefully aging, semi-legacy, non-award-winning, non-NPR producer/young adult cancer survivor? Does a media event horizon manifest in the clouds along with the token interdimensional SKY BEAM from comic book movies? Kara McGuirk-Allison is an award-winning public ra...

On the show today, DNA Science Superhero Dawn Barry , President and CEO at LUNA, a public benefit corporation that is restoring power to the people by giving them back control of their genomic health information for the greater good? What a novel idea. While we would have loved to spend the entire show debating the virtues of Beyond Meat vs. Impossible Burger, we really dig into to the very n...

On the show today, another stellar returning champion, Dr. Saralyn Mark , Former Senior Medical and Policy Advisor to The White House, NASA, and the Department of Health And Human Services, Physician Women’s Leader at the American Medical Women’s Association and Author of “Stellar Medicine: A Journey Through the Universe of Women’s Health.” Now, that was a hand full of epic credentials, but the ru...

So you want to be a speaker? You want to tell your story? Spoiler alert, it’s not so easy, and I think you might know why. Anyone can tell their story, but that doeth not maketh them a storyteller. There is a definitive art, method, and process to be a storyteller, nee, perhaps even an orator. But not necessarily a Town Crier. Today I am joined by my friend and colleague, Tricia Brouk , an aw...

Today on the show, I welcome Andrea Ottaiano , recovering agency, Pharma, and media veteran, research junkie, health coach, Founder of Silver Lining Holistic Health AND — if that’s not enough — 13-year survivor of breast cancer, liver cancer, and cholangiocarcinoma. So what happens with the Health Coach gets cancer? When the professional becomes the patient? That is a “both sides of the coin” stor...

Author and journalist Michael Millenson is one of the original agitators of the status quo of healthcare. He is a friend, mentor, and someone I have consistently referred to as the “older, angrier, and more sagacious version of me.” His activism over the past 20+ years has paved the way for scores od patient advocates like me to grow our experiences into formidable and influential bully pulpits. A...

Today’s show about fertility and family planing is very personal to millions of people. Because, while you may want to be a biological mom or dad one day, bad things happen to good people. Joining me is perhaps one of the most unsung advocacy heroes you may never have heard of, Barb Collura , the President and CEO of RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association. One in eight couples struggle with...

Today on the show, returning champion Dr. Joseph Mikhael , Professor of Applied Cancer Research at the TGen institute for City of Hope AND the Chief Medical Officer of the International Myeloma Foundation. We are talking all things Telehealth, telemedicine, tele-patients, tele-hospital, and video telephones, otherwise known as cell phones, tablets, and computers. Upside. Downside. Side side? Zoom...

Today's show is not a "very special episode" of Different Strokes, Facts of Life, Family Ties, Webster, or Blossom, BUT it is a "very special episode" nonetheless. Jane Sarasohn-Kahn has been a friend, a teacher, a mentor, a sherpa, a conscience, and a big sister to me for over 15 years. I mean it when I say she is as close to biological family as you can get without the Jerry Springer sibling DNA...

On today’s show, Dr. Joseph Mikhael , Professor of Applied Cancer Research at the TGen institute for City of Hope AND the Chief Medical Officer of the International Myeloma Foundation, an incredible nonprofit advocacy and research organization that I’ve been proud to call a partner for many many years. They’re a great group. Joe is one of the most highly coveted and requested subject matter expert...

On today’s show, returning champion Dr. Jean-Luc Neptune , physician, entrepreneur, innovator, technologist, digital health guru, and Founder at Suntra Modern Recovery, a Telehealth platform offering personalized recovery solutions for people with substance use disorders. As two separate possessors of COVID-19 antibodies, this time around on the show, the tables were turned as I got to ask him a w...

On today’s show, returning champion Dr. Catharine Young , former Senior Director of Science Policy at the Biden Cancer Initiative, and current Executive Director at the SHEPHERD foundation. A human of many hats, she’s also a TED Fellow, Presidential Leadership Scholar, and Doctor of Philosophy with one of the most awesomely sardonic Twitter feeds around @CatYoung. Catharine was one of my very firs...

On today's show, friend, colleague, fellow young adult cancer survivor, advocate, speaker, blogger, and Stage IV melanoma bald guy, TJ Sharpe . He just celebrated his 8-year cancerversary and — spoiler alert — is still here alive, kicking, and staying just angry enough to keep poking a stick at the dumpster fire that is our modern-day healthcare system. His activism has made him one of the dominan...

On today’s show, John Gorman , Founder of the Gorman Health Group, member of the Board of Directors of Henry Ford Health System’s Health Alliance Plan, and the Chairman at Nightingale Partners LLC which — to paraphrase — make things suck a whole less for underserved and economically disadvantaged communities by focusing on racial disparities in healthcare. His 30+ years experience in public servic...

Christine Hodgdon is a globe-trotting, human Fodor conservation biologist turned patient “radvocate” (that would be my neologism for radical advocate) by way of her enduring the loss of her father to rare cancer at the same time of her own Dx of Stage IV Metastatic Cancer AND Thyroid Cancer. Gesundheit! She was 34. Among many other interesting things, we talk about the gaps in cancer research that...

On today's show, we welcome Trevor Maxwell . Trevor is a husband, a writer, and a father to two teenage daughters. Two years ago, he was diagnosed with stage four metastatic colon cancer. He is a powerhouse advocate who never envisioned becoming an advocate. But that's how it works, right? You recognize a need, get angry that it is not being met, and become the accidental advocate. The need Trevor...

On today's show, we welcome Julie Croner , Vice President of the Patient Leader Network at WEGO Health. Julie is a rare disease activist who has been educating and empowering patients for more than a decade with tools to better advocate for themselves and others. She and I met a while ago at one of those spectacularly stupid Pharma conferences where tokenism reigns supreme. These are the conferenc...

Lilly Stairs is the Founder of Patient Authentic, which is exactly as it sounds: a bully pulpit that takes (1) the chocolate that is the health tech sector and (2) the peanut butter that are the nonprofits, and makes the Reeses Peanut Butter cup of social change that puts the patient at the forefront of every conversation. Advocates are not born. They are made, often of their own condition. Lilly...

On today's show, my good friend, long-time partner-in-crime advocate, and Princess Leia Jedi Master of Health Tech, Susannah Fox , who I consider to be one of the most insightful, introspective and influential unicorn, renaissance human beings around. Susannah was the Chief Technology Officer for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and is currently on the boards of Cambia and Hive, an...

On today's show, we welcome one of the most influential human beings of my career: Dan Pallotta , champion of charity and the entire nonprofit business sector. Dan's take on how we as a culture think about charity the wrong way planted a bedrock philosophy in my head for how I was going to grow and lead Stupid Cancer to scalable success without the pitfalls of donors complaining about "Overhead."...

Alice Crisci is a cancer survivor, entrepreneur and activist. She founded MedAnswers to speed consumer access to specialty medicine. Her company's first app product, FertilityAnswers, is the only social network for fertility. FertilityAnswers connects users struggling to conceive with multi-disciplinary experts who can answer their anonymous fertility questions. Alice also founded the oncofertilit...