Podcasts about healthcare policy

Vasanta Pundarika built her career inside healthcare investment banking before launching Lotuspring, an advisory firm focused on women's health and behavioral health. She spent nearly 20 years advising healthcare systems, treatment providers, and growth stage companies on mergers, financing, and operational strategy while watching the industry repeatedly misunderstand the people it claimed to serve.The conversation starts unexpectedly with anthropology, bread, and language. Vasanta explains how she spent years changing the pronunciation of her own name to make other people comfortable before eventually reclaiming it. That thread opens into a much larger discussion about adaptation, identity, and what institutions quietly train people to tolerate.From there, the discussion moves into behavioral health, women delaying care, and the invisible labor that healthcare business models routinely ignore. During COVID, Vasanta noticed men's behavioral health units refilled faster than women's units. The reason had nothing to do with demand. Women were still home managing caregiving responsibilities, children, aging parents, and households while their own mental health collapsed in the background.The episode examines what happens when healthcare companies become “snazzy big brands” before building real clinical substance underneath. Vasanta describes the tension between mission and margin inside healthcare startups, private equity backed care models, and behavioral health expansion. The conversation pushes on who benefits when healthcare scales aggressively, who absorbs the operational pressure, and how patient trust erodes long before executives notice it on a dashboard.They also discuss patient advocacy culture, anthropology as systems analysis, healthcare capitalism, prior authorization, investor language, and why some clinically excellent companies never survive long enough to scale.RELATED LINKSVasanta PundarikaLotuspringWomen's Health HorizonsSakhi for South Asian SurvivorsNACDPrinceton University Anthropology DepartmentFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Brad Power spent years advising major corporations on systems design, process engineering, and decision making before lymphoma shoved him into the patient side of American healthcare. Instead of accepting the experience at face value, he started reverse engineering the machinery around cancer itself. Brad is the founder of Cancer Patient Lab and Open Cancer AI, two projects built around a blunt reality most patients discover too late: the healthcare system rewards people who know how to navigate it. Everyone else risks getting steamrolled by information asymmetry, insurance barriers, administrative friction, and institutional incentives designed around efficiency instead of human survival.The conversation starts with Harvard Business Review and Tumblr blogs before moving directly into the darker architecture underneath modern cancer care. Power explains how hospitals optimize for throughput, how insurance companies reward operational consistency over personalized medicine, and why many patients quietly end up needing a crash course in oncology, reimbursement policy, and behavioral psychology while fighting for their lives.The discussion digs into CAR-T therapy, functional testing, AI assisted decision support, and the growing collision between personalized medicine and standardized care pathways. Power argues that engaged patients often get better outcomes because they learn how to push for off guideline treatments, contest denials, and ask smarter questions. The counterpoint lands hard: patients should never have needed to become experts in the first place.The episode also explores the cultural consequences of AI entering cancer care. OpenAI advertising, data privacy, trust erosion, pharmaceutical influence, and “agentic AI” all collide inside a healthcare economy already drowning in distrust. Power sees artificial intelligence as a force multiplier for patient literacy and access. The larger system still decides who gets approved, who gets delayed, and who gets left behind.By the end, the conversation lands exactly where modern healthcare keeps forcing people to land: survival increasingly depends on learning how the machine works before the machine works on you.RELATED LINKSBrad PowerCancer Patient LabOpen Cancer AIHarvard Business ReviewResearch to the PeopleCAR T Cell TherapyFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Patient Safety Risk Few Are Talking About Synopsis: Inside one Texas hospital, a pattern emerges: too few staff, unsafe conditions and profit over people. What's happening here points to a broader crisis - nurses across the U.S. being pushed to the brink and leaving their workplace or the profession itself. We cover the story of one nurse and how this affects patient care and outcomes. Guests:  Katie Oberhelman, nurse, Saint Joseph Hospital Jessica Martinez, executive director, National Council for Occupational Safety and Health. Host: Gary Price Producer: Amirah Zaveri   Linktr.ee | Apple Podcasts | YouTube | SpotifyFacebook: @ViewpointsOnlineX: @viewpointsradioInstagram: @viewpointsradioFull ArchiveContact UsAffiliates & National Syndication Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Patient Safety Risk Few Are Talking About Inside one Texas hospital, a pattern emerges: too few staff, unsafe conditions and profit over people. What's happening here points to a broader crisis - nurses across the U.S. being pushed to the brink and leaving their workplace or the profession itself. We cover the story of one nurse and how this affects patient care and outcomes. Guests:  Katie Oberhelman, nurse, Saint Joseph Hospital Jessica Martinez, executive director, National Council for Occupational Safety and Health.   What A Prison Tray Reveals About Rehabilitation & Dignity We look at how prison meals shape punishment, dignity and health while incarcerated, and how what's served on a tray can affect a prisoner's life long after release. Guest: Aishatu Yusuf, vice president of innovation programs, Impact Justice, co-author, Eating Behind Bars: Ending the Hidden Punishment of Food in Prison. Linktr.ee | Apple Podcasts | YouTube | SpotifyFacebook: @ViewpointsOnlineX: @viewpointsradioInstagram: @viewpointsradioFull ArchiveContact UsAffiliates & National Syndication Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

By the time the paper hit version 71, Dr. Nirosha Murugan had already done the hard part. The data were real. The experiment had worked. A team of researchers had used a wearable bioreactor to trigger limb regeneration in frogs, a result with obvious implications for regenerative medicine. But the science still wasn't getting over the line. The problem wasn't the work. It was the translation.On this episode of Standard Deviation, host Oliver Bogler talks with Dr. Nirosha Murugan, a biophysicist and Tier II Canada Research Chair in Tissue Biophysics at Wilfrid Laurier University, about what happens when a scientist working at the edges of quantum biology, bioelectricity, and tissue regeneration runs headfirst into the unwritten rules of academic publishing. Murugan's research asks biologists to think beyond molecules and chemistry alone, and to consider the physical signals, electromagnetic fields, and invisible forces that shape development and healing. It is ambitious science. It is also exactly the kind of work that can make gatekeepers nervous.Bogler follows Murugan through the less glamorous part of discovery: the hidden curriculum of getting a paper published, securing scientific credibility, and learning that data do not simply “speak for themselves.” Murugan describes how jargon buried the pitch of her own work, how a lack of editorial support left her at a disadvantage, and how the JEDI program at the Life Science Editors Foundation paired her with a former journal editor who taught her how to structure a manuscript, write a cover letter, and survive peer review.The result was publication in Science Advances, but the larger story is about power. Who gets taught the rules of biomedical research. Who has access to grant writers, editors, and institutional polish. Who is left to brute-force their way through the maze. And how one scientist, having finally found the map, now makes sure her own trainees do not have to learn it the hard way.RELATED LINKSDr. Nirosha Murugan⁠Wilfrid Laurier University⁠Life Science Editors Foundation⁠JEDI Program⁠Science Advances paper on limb regeneration⁠FEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wednesday, July 8, 2026   Today, the Maine Democratic Party is weighing its options for selecting a new candidate should Graham Platner drop out; a Trump-appointed judge blocks the government from getting the names of 2020 Georgia election workers; new data shows that Obamacare enrollment has dropped dramatically over the past year; a new lawsuit shows the United States shared asylum application details with Iran; an Afghan national who fought with US forces has died in ICE custody; the family of a man shot by the Tennessee National Guard is demanding answers; Belgium beats and then trolls the US Men's National Team on Monday night; plus Allison and Dana deliver your Good News. The Daily Beans is proud to partner with Miles Taylor and our friends at DEFIANCE.org For a limited time, members of the Daily Beans community can receive a FREE 3-month full membership to DEFIANCE.org and gain access to one of the fastest-growing pro-democracy movements in America. Join here: https://www.defiance.org/beans   Thank You, IQBAR Text DAILYBEANS to 64000 to get 20% off all IQBAR products, plus FREE shipping. Message and data rates may apply.  Join The Daily Beans and give a gift today to ensure The Trevor Project can continue its crucial work in the face of continued challenges. Donate to The Trevor Project - Daily Beans Podcast Guest: Miles TaylorDefiance.org The Latest Breakdown:The Breakdown | Todd Blanche Could Be in Contempt Days Ahead of His Confirmation Hearing Stories Bernie Sanders Calls on Graham Platner to Drop Senate Bid After Rape Allegation | The New York Times Federal judge rejects Trump administration effort to get names of 2020 election workers in Fulton County Obamacare rolls shrank dramatically in many states over the past year, new federal data shows | AP News New lawsuit alleges U.S. shared asylum application details with Iran | NPR The family of a man shot by the Tennessee National Guard demands release of video | AP NewsGood TroubleContacting U.S. Senators | Senate.gov →Show up for our Libraries - action.ala.org →goodtroubleliveson.org/ July 17-19 →How to help those impacted by the Venezuela earthquakes|AP →Oppose House Amendment to Defund the Peace Corps! →Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance -  Open For Comments →Stand With Minnesota →ICE List  →iceout.org Good NewsThe Bloggess | Jenny Lawson Sistrum - Lansing, Sister Singers Network dana-goldbergs-southwest-funnyfest Oct 9 -Email Dana@DanaGoldberg.com for sponsorship information Tour - DANA GOLDBERGTickets for Dana Goldberg: Outrageous - Sep 23 - Den Theater - Chicago  →Share your Good News & Good Trouble - The Daily Beans   →Beans Talk audio -beans-talk.simplecast.com →Email Dana LGBTQ Owned eating establishments in your area - hello@mswmedia.com Subject: “Dana's Project” Subscribe to the MSW YouTube Channel - MSW Media - YouTube Our Donation Links The Trevor Project - trevorproject.org/beans Blue Wave California - https://secure.actblue.com/donate/msw-bwc Donate to Public Citizen - https://citizen.org/beans/ The Daily Beans is donating $10,000 and invites you to give what you can to support their life-affirming work - Donate to It Gets Better / The Daily Beans Fundraiser Pathways to Citizenship link to MATCH Allison's Donationhttps://crm.bloomerang.co/HostedDonation?ApiKey=pub_86ff5236-dd26-11ec-b5ee-066e3d38bc77&WidgetId=6388736 Join Dana and The Daily Beans in support of Human Rights Campaign http://onecau.se/_ekes71 More Donation LinksNational Security Counselors - Donate, ActBlue.com/donate/msw-bwc, WhistleblowerAid.org/beans Dr. Allison Gill - The Breakdown | Allison Gill, Mueller, She Wrote @muellershewrote.com - Bluesky, MSW & The Daily Beans Podcast @muellershewrote - Instagram, MSW Media - YouTube →Federal workers - email AG at fedoath@pm.me and let me know what you're going to do, or just vent. I'm always here to listen.  Dana Goldberg - Dana is on Patreon! At Dana's Dugout, @dgcomedy - Bluesky, @dgcomedy - IG, Dana Goldberg - Facebook,  DanaGoldberg.com More from MSW Media - Shows - MSW Media, Cleanup On Aisle 45 pod, The Breakdown | Allison Gill Reminder - you can see the pod pics if you become a Patron. The good news pics are at the bottom of the show notes of each Patreon episode! That's just one of the perks of subscribing! patreon.com/muellershewrote Listener Survey:http://survey.podtrac.com/start-survey.aspx?pubid=BffJOlI7qQcF&ver=shortFollow the Podcast on Apple:https://apple.co/3XNx7ckWant to support the show and get it ad-free and early?https://patreon.com/thedailybeanshttps://dailybeans.supercast.com/https://apple.co/3UKzKt0 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Dr. Jess Peatross trained in conventional medicine and worked as a hospitalist before she started questioning why so many chronically ill patients kept getting worse inside the healthcare system she trusted. Her perspective carries weight because she spent years following every protocol exactly as taught before walking away from hospital medicine entirely.Raised in Huntington, West Virginia during the opioid crisis, she entered medicine believing the system existed to heal people. Instead, she found hospitals driven by billing codes, liability management, and pharmaceutical dependence while patients with chronic illness, autoimmune disease, mold exposure, and chronic pain cycled endlessly through appointments and prescriptions.Dr. Peatross explains what pushed her toward functional medicine, cannabis therapy, and prevention focused care after watching patients improve only after leaving conventional treatment pipelines behind. The conversation tackles physician burnout, chronic illness stigma, healthcare incentives, and the growing collapse of trust between patients and institutions.The discussion also moves into supplements, environmental toxins, ultra processed food, and the uncomfortable economics behind keeping people permanently sick but continuously billable. Dr. Peatross describes the professional backlash that comes with challenging medical orthodoxy while Matthew connects her experience to the broader erosion of public trust across American healthcare.Together they unpack what happens when patients stop believing the system can help them and start searching elsewhere for answers.RELATED LINKSDr. Jess PeatrossInstagramMarshall UniversityBrave New WeedFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Healthcare leaders know the pattern. Warning signs appear. Evidence accumulates. Institutions hesitate. And by the time action is taken, the cost, human and financial, is already enormous. Right now, that pattern is playing out across AI deployment, eroding public trust, and simultaneously weakening fragile health systems. In this episode of Digital Health Talks, physician-scientist and biostatistician Dr. Barry R. Davis brings a framework health leaders can actually use. Drawing on decades leading landmark prevention trials and his new book The Preventioneers: Diseases, Disasters, and the Discoveries That Changed Our World (Johns Hopkins University Press, May 2026), Dr. Davis breaks down why evidence alone rarely drives action, what trust has to do with it, and what the leaders who successfully broke the cycle actually did differently. If you are responsible for AI governance, patient trust, or building a prevention-first culture inside your health system, this conversation is for you. Dr. Barry Davis, Professor Emeritus, UTHealth Megan Antonelli, Chief Executive Officer, HealthIMPACT Live Subscribe to Digital Health Talks on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen.Learn more about HealthIMPACT Live events, virtual forums, and healthcare leader conversations at healthimpactlive.com.Interested in being a guest, sponsoring, or joining the HealthIMPACT community? Visit healthimpactlive.com/digital-health-talks.

Transforming your health is more fun with friends! Join Chef AJ's Exclusive Plant-Based Community. Become part of the inner circle and start simplifying plant-based living - with easy recipes and expert health guidance. Find out more by visiting: https://community.chefaj.com/ ORDER MY NEW BOOK SWEET INDULGENCE!!! https://www.amazon.com/Chef-AJs-Sweet-Indulgence-Guilt-Free/dp/1570674248 or https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/book/1144514092?ean=9781570674242 GET MY FREE INSTANT POT COOKBOOK: https://www.chefaj.com/instant-pot-download MY BEST SELLING WEIGHT LOSS BOOK: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1570674086?tag=onamzchefajsh-20&linkCode=ssc&creativeASIN=1570674086&asc_item-id=amzn1.ideas.1GNPDCAG4A86S Disclaimer: This podcast does not provide medical advice. The content of this podcast is provided for informational or educational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for informed medical advice or care. You should not use this information to diagnose or treat any health issue without consulting your doctor. Always seek medical advice before making any lifestyle changes. Get the book here:https://www.amazon.com/shop/chefaj/list/1GNPDCAG4A86S?ref_=aip_sf_list_spv_ofs_mixed_d&ccs_id=ed4dfdad-3f74-40fb-b5ab-b34f9821b312 John Abramson MD, MSc After completing a residency in Family Medicine and a 2-year Robert Wood Johnson fellowship, Dr. John Abramson practiced as a family physician for 20 years in a small town an hour north of Boston. He also served for 7 years as chair of the department of family practice at Lahey Clinic. He was on the Harvard Medical School faculty from 1997-2023, most recently as a Lecturer in the Department of Health Care Policy. In 2002, after becoming aware of the uncorrected misrepresentations about the benefits and dangers of Vioxx and Celebrex in our most respected medical journals, Dr. Abramson left his practice to devote his full attention to researching the quality of the information doctors must rely on. In September 2004 he published Overdo$ed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine. Just one week later, Vioxx was withdrawn in the biggest drug recall ever, but not before it had killed between 40 and 60,000 Americans, despite providing no better relief than inexpensive OTC anti-inflammatory drugs. From 2005 through the present, Dr. Abramson has continued his research and served as an expert in litigation involving prescription drugs and medical devices, with each case giving him access to millions of pages of confidential corporate documents and unreleased clinical trial data. He has also served as a consultant to the FBI and U. S. Department of Justice, including a case that led to what was, at the time, the largest criminal fine in U.S. history. Dr. Abramson has published multiple articles in peer reviewed journals, made numerous national media appearances, and written many op-ed pieces, including 2 in the New York Times. His main research interest is the extent to which the commercial takeover of medical knowledge, primarily by the drug companies, is compromising the quality of medical information available to even the most dedicated doctors, harming our health, and wasting enormous amounts of Americans' wealth. In February 2022 Dr. Abramson published his second book, Sickening: How Big Pharma Broke American Health Care and How We Can Repair It.

Healthcare leaders from across Southern Africa are preparing for the 25th Annual Board of Healthcare Funders Conference, where affordability, NHI, artificial intelligence, regulation and patient outcomes will dominate discussions. Zain Johnson speaks to BHF Managing Director Katlego Mothudi about why this year's theme, "Facing Headwinds: Thriving in the Unknown," comes at a pivotal moment for the healthcare sector.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Farla Efros is a senior retail executive and former CEO who built and sold companies before facing her own breast cancer diagnosis. She brings that same operational mindset into a healthcare system that expects patients to manage complexity while they are at their most vulnerable.She was on a client call in Spain when the diagnosis came through. A clear mammogram had missed it. An MRI caught it. Within hours, she was ordering binders, building a plan, and structuring her treatment like a turnaround strategy. Every appointment became a meeting. Every doctor faced an agenda with dozens of questions. She paid out of pocket for PET scans that were denied and hired a third party firm to validate her treatment path when her own doctors resisted outside input. The conversation tracks what happens when a high-functioning executive enters a system built on delay, denial, and fragmentation. Efros describes negotiating for tests, managing physician relationships, and assembling an “executive board” of advisors across conventional and alternative care. She calls the experience “the worst client I ever had,” exposing how administrative burden shifts onto patients and families.The tension sits between what worked for her and what is inaccessible to most. Her approach requires confidence, time, and fluency in navigating power. The system rewards that behavior while quietly failing patients who cannot replicate it. Insurance coverage still left her paying out of pocket. Doctors pushed standard protocols over precision medicine. Survivorship offered little support once treatment ended.This episode examines how cancer care operates as a series of incentives rather than a coordinated system, and why patients are forced to become operators just to get through it.RELATED LINKSFarla EfrosFarla Efros on LinkedInF*ck CancerF*ck Cancer on AmazonAccentureCTOAMPULL QUOTES“I treated cancer like the worst client I ever had.”“They wouldn't approve the test, so I paid for it myself.”“Every appointment was a negotiation.”FEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week on the #FactsMatter podcast: Host Guy Gordon speaks with Karley Abramson, Associate Researcher for Healthcare Policy at the Citizens Research Council of Michigan, about the impending rollout of Medicaid work requirements—changes that will affect roughly one in four Michigan residents. Abramson outlines the dual challenge ahead: 1. Eligibility changes that require enrollees to document 80 hours of work, job training, schooling, or community service each month; and 2. More frequent redeterminations, which will double the administrative burden for both the state and recipients. While some individuals will lose coverage for not meeting the new criteria, Abramson emphasizes that a significant share of losses will stem from paperwork barriers, documentation gaps, and system errors—not from ineligibility. This matters because Michigan receives a 90/10 federal match for Medicaid expansion dollars, meaning unnecessary disenrollment directly harms the state's fiscal position. The conversation also highlights broader system impacts: increased uncompensated care, heightened financial pressure on rural hospitals already operating on thin margins, and greater medical debt for individuals who lose coverage even temporarily. Evidence from other states suggests work requirements do not meaningfully increase employment, despite claims to the contrary. Abramson argues that Michigan must invest now in public awareness, navigation tools, and data-sharing infrastructure to minimize avoidable coverage losses and protect both residents and healthcare providers from downstream harm. For policymakers and stakeholders, this episode offers a clear, fact-based overview of what's coming—and why implementation choices made in the next six months will shape outcomes for years.

Sixty percent of Medicare's mental health workforce is made up of clinical social workers — and they're being reimbursed at 75 cents on the dollar compared to clinical psychologists. That's not a footnote. That's a workforce crisis hiding in plain sight. In this episode, Jamie sits down with Dr. Jimmy Williamson — social worker, NASW Vice President, and seasoned Capitol Hill advocate — for one of the most practical, non-partisan conversations about politics and healthcare you'll hear anywhere. Jimmy just returned from a full day of lobbying on the Hill, and he breaks down exactly what that looks like, what's at stake, and why every healthcare employee — not just the C-suite — has a role to play. You'll hear: Why clinical social workers are fighting to move their Medicare reimbursement rate from 75% to 85% — and how it would actually save Medicare $420 million How the Department of Education's reclassification of nursing and social work is quietly capping the next generation's borrowing limits and shrinking the workforce pipeline The Farm Bill's Hot Foods Act and why a working single mother's ability to buy a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store is a healthcare issue Why politicians want to hear from constituents — and how to get your voice in front of the right people without spending hours doing it The first move anyone can make this week to stop being a bystander and start being a citizen This episode won't make you angry. It'll make you want to make a phone call. www.YourHealth.Org

In 2020, Emily Mendenhall drove from Washington, DC to Okoboji, Iowa, a town of 800 that swells to 200,000 every summer, and walked into a pandemic that looked nothing like the one dominating national headlines. Inside gas stations and bars, masks marked you as an outsider. In one stop, a man told her family they would not be served if they kept theirs on. Her 6 year old daughter cried, confused. Mendenhall, a medical anthropologist at Georgetown University, did what she always does. She started asking questions. Over months, she interviewed neighbors, former classmates, and local officials, including her own brother in law who helped lead the local COVID response. The result became Unmasked, a case study in how community identity, economics, and politics shaped public health decisions in real time. That work led directly into her latest book, Invisible Illness: A History, from Hysteria to Long COVID, where she tracks a much older problem. Patients with chronic illness, especially women, often fail to meet medicine's demand for proof. Without a clear diagnosis, they lose access to care, insurance coverage, and legitimacy. Mendenhall argues that long COVID did not create this failure. It exposed it.This conversation centers on how healthcare systems reward certainty and punish complexity. Long COVID clinics send patients to 17 specialists without resolution. Insurance structures require diagnoses that many conditions cannot provide. Medical training still struggles to integrate trauma, mental health, and chronic disease into a coherent model of care.Mendenhall brings lived experience into the conversation. After COVID, she dealt with months of fatigue and escalating anxiety that altered her baseline health. She does not claim the label of long COVID, but she understands how quickly the system becomes harder to navigate once symptoms stop fitting clean categories. The stakes are not theoretical. In the United States, access to healthcare, disability benefits, and treatment still depends on whether a condition can be measured, coded, and reimbursed. For millions living with invisible illness, the burden of proof becomes the illness itself.RELATED LINKSEmily MendenhallInvisible Illness: A History, from Hysteria to Long COVIDScience PoliticsGeorgetown UniversityFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

At 25, Jace Yawnick was building a career in health and wellness sales, chasing growth, status, and the usual young adult fantasy of getting somewhere fast. Then his body stopped cooperating. Fatigue turned into chemotherapy. The diagnosis was primary mediastinal B cell non Hodgkin lymphoma, and the rest of his life split into before and after. Now in remission, he talks about cancer the way people actually live it, not the way nonprofits package it. He gets into survivorship, mental health, young adult isolation, and the deadening absurdity of prior authorization. One of the sharpest parts of the conversation lands on a simple American insult disguised as policy: treatment innovation means very little when insurance can still deny the scan, the drug, or the next step. Jace has seen that firsthand, including during routine monitoring after active treatment. This episode tracks what happens when a young cancer patient becomes a public voice and refuses to play mascot. It covers oncology, insurance, remission, advocacy, and the long mental hangover that follows survival. It also names the part too many institutions dodge: the system works great right up until it doesn't, and when it fails, patients get handed the bill, the panic, and a camera if they want anyone to care. RELATED LINKSJace Beats CancerJace Yawnick on LinkedImConquer Cancer ArticleCURE Today ArticlePyure BrandsFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What if the most important care in the entire healthcare system is also the most underfunded? While hospitals and inpatient reimbursements rise with inflation, the physician fee schedule has quietly declined roughly 33% in real terms over 25 years — and this year it's facing another cut. In this episode, Jamie Preston sits down with Your Health CEO Matt Staub, just back from Capitol Hill, where he spent a record-setting 95-degree day meeting with seven legislative offices to advocate for physicians, providers, and the patients they serve across rural South Carolina, Georgia, and beyond. What follows is part field report, part reflection on why preventive primary care saves money and lives — and why we plan meticulously for weddings, retirement, and vacations, but treat our own health with a "call us if something happens" approach. In this conversation: Why a 2.5–5% physician fee cut hits frontline rural practices hardest The bipartisan doctors' caucus and the real appetite for reform Why winning can come from a loss — the Kobe Bryant mindset on process over outcome How a Disney ride (Spaceship Earth) reframes humanity's whole story around communication The case for proactive, team-based primary care over reactive sick visits Press play for a conversation about advocacy, communication, and a simple, powerful idea: the change you need to make starts with you.

At 20 years old, newly arrived from Puerto Rico and trying to build a future in science, Benjamin Suarez Jimenez found himself sitting in front of two senior faculty members accused of plagiarism. He knew the material. He had done the work. His mistake came from failing to cite class notes during an exam because nobody had told him that was expected. In a matter of minutes, he watched what felt like his entire career flash before him.On this episode of Standard Deviation, host Oliver Bogler examines the hidden architecture of academic science through the experiences of Dr. Benjamin Suarez Jimenez, Assistant Professor at the University of Rochester and a neuroscientist studying PTSD, anxiety, trauma, and spatial cognition through virtual reality and video game environments.Benjamin traces his path from Puerto Rico to the mainland United States, through the NIH, Columbia University, and eventually to leading his own laboratory. Along the way, he encountered a series of barriers that had little to do with scientific ability and everything to do with access to unwritten rules. From academic gatekeeping to grant writing expectations, he learned that success in biomedical research often depends on knowledge that never appears in a textbook.Oliver explores how those invisible obstacles shape careers, influence research funding, and determine who gains access to opportunity. The conversation also examines the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Program at the Life Science Editors Foundation, which pairs scientists from underrepresented backgrounds with experienced scientific editors. Through that mentorship, Benjamin transformed a critical grant proposal into a successful pilot award that helped launch an NIH R01 application.The discussion extends beyond one scientist's experience. Benjamin describes helping a former mentee navigate dissertation roadblocks that threatened her graduation, illustrating how institutional bureaucracy can delay careers and discourage talented researchers. Together, they explore the hidden administrative burden, cultural barriers, and bias that many scientists carry alongside their research, and what happens when someone who receives support turns around and opens the door for others.RELATED LINKSLife Science Editors FoundationBenjamin Suarez Jimenez LabDr. Benjamin Suarez JimenezBenjamin Suarez JimenezFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode of Quality Matters examines the growing role of digital wellness and chronic condition management programs and the challenge of measuring what truly matters. Host Rachel Harrington is joined by Peter Robertson of the Purchasing Business Group on Health and California Quality Collaborative and Kevin Masci of Omada Health to discuss how digital health solutions can help address rising healthcare costs, workforce shortages and fragmented care experiences. Peter and Kevin explain why meaningful engagement goes far beyond app downloads and login counts. Instead, successful programs focus on sustained participation, patient-centered goal setting, integration with primary care and measurable improvements in health outcomes. The conversation explores how employers, health plans and providers are evaluating digital solutions through clinical outcomes, patient-reported outcomes, utilization measures and value-based contracting arrangements. The guests also discuss one of the most important challenges facing digital health: trust. Privacy, transparency, data security and clear communication about how patient data is collected and used all play critical roles in long-term adoption. The episode concludes with a Patient Voice segment featuring Brandee Hicks, who shares her firsthand experiences using digital health tools, highlighting both the convenience they offer and the ongoing challenges around interoperability, digital literacy and maintaining support after programs end.     Highlights Beyond Logins and Clicks Meaningful engagement isn't about how often patients open an app. It's about helping people achieve their health goals through sustained participation and measurable outcomes. Measuring What Matters Guests discuss the growing use of clinical outcomes, patient-reported outcomes, utilization data and value-based contracting to assess digital health program performance. Trust Is Essential Digital health solutions must address concerns around privacy, transparency, data security and how patient information is stored and shared. The Patient Perspective Brandee Hicks shares how digital tools can improve organization, access and self-management while also revealing gaps in continuity, support and interoperability. Looking Ahead The future of digital health depends on better integration with primary care, more personalized engagement strategies and stronger measurement frameworks that prioritize patient outcomes.     Key Quote: "If we're really serious about improving health outcomes, we have to move beyond measuring clicks and logins. The real question is whether people are achieving meaningful progress toward their health goals—and whether these programs are creating lasting value for patients, providers and purchasers alike." — Kevin Masci     Time Stamps: (02:20) Meet Peter Robertson (03:45) Meet Kevin Masci (05:53) Why Digital Solutions Matter (10:01) Care Coordination, Not Care Fragmentation (11:52) Defining Meaningful Patient Engagement (15:07) Why Consistent Measurement Matters (18:32) Measuring Outcomes in Value-Based Contracts (21:12) Data Stratification, Risk Adjustment and Performance Guarantees (27:22) Privacy, Trust and Transparency in Digital Health (30:44) The Future of Digital Wellness and Chronic Care Management (35:08) Patient Voice: Brandee Hicks (40:25) Patient Challenges, Access and Continuity of Care (45:23) Key Takeaways and Closing Thoughts     Dive Deeper: Connect with Peter Robertson Connect with Kevin Masci Connect with Brandee Hicks Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week on The Beat, CTSNet Editor-in-Chief Joel Dunning spoke with Dr. Nikki Stamp, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Mount Private Hospital in Perth, Western Australia, who also serves as an Adjunct Clinical Senior Lecturer at Curtin University, Australia, about shifting healthcare policy in surgery.   Chapters  00:00 Intro  01:45 ESTS 2026  02:01 Presidential Address  02:52 Keynote, Emerging Surgical Technologies  05:21 Segmentectomy vs Lobectomy  10:18 Other Key Presentations  11:34 JANS 1, Propensity Score Analysis  12:30 JANS 2, FILONEX Hemodiafiltration  13:21 JANS 3, Transplant Surgery at Night  14:29 Video 1, Aortic Dissection Presentations  15:36 Video 2, Endoscopic AV & AA Replacement  16:45 Video 3, Tetralogy Repair in an Infant  18:12 Dr. Stamp, Health Media & Policy  33:46 Career Center  34:03 Closing  They begin by discussing Dr. Stamp's professional background, including her experiences working with the media and the lessons she learned from it. They also explore the positive effects of social media for surgeons, such as networking and learning from peers. Additionally, they identify areas for improvement in aortic surgery and transplants. Dr. Stamp then shares her vision for the future of cardiothoracic surgery, emphasizing the need to reduce fragmentation of care and encourage professionals to focus their efforts on their specific specialties.   Joel also highlights recent JANS articles on a propensity score matching analysis on the risk of sternal wound infection in bilateral skeletonized internal thoracic artery in coronary artery bypass grafting, a prospective, randomized controlled pilot safety study evaluating the addition of hemodiafiltration to EVLP in marginal donor lungs, mechanical load inhibits cancer growth in mouse and human hearts, and outcomes of lung transplantation surgery performed at night  In addition, Joel explores totally endoscopic aortic valve and ascending aorta replacement, tetralogy repair in an infant, and a presentation from the 2026 Society for Cardiothoracic Surgery in Great Britain and Ireland Annual Meeting on aortic dissection.  Before closing, Joel highlights upcoming events in CT surgery.    JANS Items Mentioned  Risk of Sternal Wound Infection in Bilateral Skeletonized Internal Thoracic Artery in Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting: A Propensity Score Matching Analysis FILONEX—A Prospective, Randomized Controlled Pilot Safety Study Evaluating the Addition of Hemodiafiltration to EVLP in Marginal Donor Lungs Mechanical Load Inhibits Cancer Growth in Mouse and Human Hearts Outcomes of Lung Transplantation Surgery Performed at Night CTSNet Content Mentioned  SCTS 2026 | Aortic Dissection   Totally Endoscopic Aortic Valve and Ascending Aorta Replacement   Tetralogy Repair in an Infant   Other Items Mentioned  Career Center  CTSNet Events   Disclaimer The information and views presented on CTSNet.org represent the views of the authors and contributors of the material and not of CTSNet. Please review our full disclaimer page here.

Dr. Sarah Matt trained as a burn surgeon, working in a field where patients arrive with catastrophic injuries and survival depends on speed, skill, and resources. She left the bedside after confronting a limit that medicine does not like to admit. One physician can only see so many people in a day. The system surrounding those patients decides the rest. She moved into health technology, held leadership roles in startups, and built global infrastructure at Oracle to scale care across populations. Then she watched billions of dollars in digital health and AI initiatives stall out when they hit real clinical environments.This episode follows that pivot from surgeon to strategist and back into direct patient care in rural New York, where she now treats uninsured patients, migrant workers, and communities pushed to the margins. The conversation centers on a persistent failure across healthcare systems. Products get built for regulators, executives, and investors instead of the people who use them. The result shows up in failed adoption, broken workflows, prior authorization delays, and rising physician burnout.The discussion cuts through health policy language and lands on lived consequence. The system rewards speed over usability, scale over trust, and compliance over care. Patients absorb the fallout. Physicians carry the liability. The incentives remain intact.RELATED LINKSDr. Sarah MattThe Borderless Healthcare RevolutionThe Clinical RealistJessica FedererSovatoFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hosts ASN CEO & EVP Tod Ibrahim and Senior Policy & Govt. Affairs Coordinator Lauren Ahearn discuss the upcoming summer rulemaking season, ASN's USPSTF nomination, the annual AMA meeting in Chicago, IL, and more.

Hosts ASN CEO & EVP Tod Ibrahim and Senior Policy & Govt. Affairs Coordinator Lauren Ahearn discuss the upcoming summer rulemaking season, ASN's USPSTF nomination, the annual AMA meeting in Chicago, IL, and more.

In the late 1980s, a child exposed to fallout from the Chernobyl disaster lay in a hospital bed while doctors told his family there were no clear answers and no reliable path forward. Decades later, that same child, Yan Leyfman, walks into exam rooms as a hematology oncology fellow, expected to deliver clarity inside a system that still runs on delay, uncertainty, and institutional self preservation.This episode traces the throughline from early life shaped by radiation exposure and hospice level uncertainty to a career inside academic medicine, translational research, and oncology media. Yan built his identity around survival and usefulness, moving from patient to physician while carrying the memory of what it feels like to sit on the other side of the table. He helped launch MedNews Week during the COVID crisis to push back on misinformation and expand access to medical knowledge, stepping into a public role while still in training.The conversation stays grounded in the friction between personal narrative and system reality. Clinical training demands efficiency, hierarchy, and emotional distance. Cancer care demands time, clarity, and human connection. Those forces collide in real patient encounters where prior authorization delays, insurance barriers, and fragmented care pathways shape outcomes as much as any treatment protocol.Yan speaks openly about mentorship, belonging, and the drive to make meaning out of survival. The discussion pushes further into what the healthcare system actually rewards, what it quietly strips away, and how quickly empathy can erode under institutional pressure. The episode also examines the role of medical media, where education, industry influence, and narrative control often blur together.This is a conversation about identity under construction, about what happens when someone who remembers powerlessness steps into a role that carries authority, and about whether that memory can survive long enough to change anything.RELATED LINKSYan Leyfman on LinkedInYan Leyfman on InstagramSurviving ChernobylFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Health care policy plays a critical role in who gets screened for cancer and who can afford it. In the miniVHAN with us is, Maddie Michael of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network who shares how advocacy, legislation and community voices shape access to cancer care and improve outcomes.

Matthew Zachary is a brain cancer survivor, healthcare advocate, founder of Stupid Cancer and We the Patients, and host of Out of Patients. In April 2026, he returned to the stage at Merkin Hall near Lincoln Center for his first solo public piano concert in almost 22 years while launching his debut book, We the Patients: Understanding, Navigating, and Surviving America's Healthcare Nightmare.What unfolded became far larger than a concert.Over 2 hours, survivors, clinicians, advocates, nonprofit founders, journalists, pharmaceutical sponsors, and healthcare insiders gathered in one room to reflect on 30 years of survivorship, institutional failure, accidental advocacy, and the emotional afterlife of cancer. The evening moved through original piano performances, live chapter readings, and deeply personal conversations about infertility, disability, financial toxicity, insurance denials, grief, burnout, and what happens when patients spend decades navigating systems designed around transactions instead of continuity.Guests including Wendell Potter, Maimah Karmo, Craig Lustig, Shelly Fuld Nasso, Tamika Felder, and others reflected on how the modern cancer advocacy movement emerged largely because patients built parallel systems where healthcare infrastructure failed to meet human needs. The conversation explored how prior authorization, reimbursement incentives, administrative fragmentation, and institutional distrust continue shaping the patient experience across oncology and survivorship.The performance also marked a deeply personal milestone. After brain cancer compromised his left hand at age 21, Zachary spent 6 months rehabilitating both hands to return to public performance for the first time in over 2 decades. The result became part concert, part civic gathering, and part historical record of a generation of survivors who refused to disappear quietly.RELATED LINKSMZLIVE Official WebsiteMZLIVE YouTube VideoFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In December 1996, a 37 year old pharmaceutical executive sat in a Borders bookstore reading medical textbooks on the floor, trying to understand a disease she had never heard of. Multiple myeloma carried a three year prognosis. Her daughter was 18 months old. Her father had just died of cancer. Within weeks, she pushed her doctors to say the quiet part clearly. This would likely end her life before her child entered kindergarten.Kathy Giusti refused to accept passive survival. She built a plan while the system offered fragments. She interviewed oncologists and fertility specialists at the same time. She pursued IVF to have a second child while preparing for treatment. She stayed employed to keep insurance coverage. Every decision carried financial, medical, and emotional risk.That same urgency exposed a deeper failure. Cancer research moved slowly. Academic centers guarded data. Clinical trials lacked coordination. Patients entered a system that demanded compliance without providing clarity. Giusti responded by building the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, not as a support group, but as an operating engine to accelerate drug development, fund research, and force collaboration across institutions.This episode tracks the tension between individual agency and systemic failure. Giusti describes how patients navigate diagnosis, insurance barriers, and fragmented care in real time. She explains how data, genomics, and clinical trials reshape cancer treatment while still leaving patients responsible for decisions they are not trained to make. She addresses disparities in access, the limits of early detection, and the reality that progress in oncology often depends on speed, funding, and alignment of incentives.The conversation moves between lived experience and structural critique. It names the cost of delay, the burden placed on patients to act as their own advocate, and the tradeoffs required to push a system forward that still protects itself first.⸻RELATED LINKSKathy GiustiMultiple Myeloma Research FoundationFatal to FearlessAmerican Society of Hematology⸻FEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I am excited to welcome Alexa McKinley-Abel onto our show! Today we're talking about the impact of funding cuts and harmful legislation on rural communities and hospitals. Alexa is here to share her perspective as an expert in government policy and advocacy. We'll talk about the role of state offices, the newest budget cuts proposed for Fiscal Year 2027, and of course, what it all has to do with rural health. Follow Rural Health Today on social media! https://x.com/RuralHealthPod https://www.youtube.com/@ruralhealthtoday7665  Follow Hillsdale Hospital on social media! https://www.facebook.com/hillsdalehospital/ https://www.twitter.com/hillsdalehosp/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/hillsdale-community-health-center/ https://www.instagram.com/hillsdalehospital/  Follow our guest on social media! https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexa-mckinley/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/national-rural-health-association/posts/?feedView=all https://www.facebook.com/ruralhealth

At 19, Shlomit woke up unable to speak. The right side of her body went numb. An emergency room sent her home and called it stress. That moment did not end in a diagnosis that changed policy or triggered reform. It sent her into a decade long pursuit of understanding how the brain fails language and how the healthcare system fails patients who cannot advocate for themselves.Shlomit trained as a speech language pathologist and spent years inside acute care hospitals and ICUs, performing endoscopies and treating patients with brain injury, stroke, and dysphagia. She watched medical teams rotate in and out, deliver dense updates, and leave families nodding without comprehension. She stayed behind and translated. Every day, patients told her she was the only one who explained what was happening. That gap is not an accident. Hospital systems optimize for throughput, not understanding. Patients move through beds based on cost, not readiness. Discharge planning becomes a financial decision wrapped in clinical language. A stay under 48 hours can shift the insurance burden dramatically, leaving patients exposed to higher out of pocket costs. Shlomit left the system and built Patient Path NYC, a private patient advocacy service. She now spends 15 to 20 hours a week per client reading charts, coordinating care teams, and translating medical decisions into plain language. Her work sits in the uncomfortable space between healthcare policy and lived experience. Families pay out of pocket to understand their own care. Hospitals benefit from the clarity she provides while maintaining the same structural incentives that created the confusion.This conversation tracks the human cost of fragmented care, the economics behind discharge decisions, and the quiet reality that patients who cannot communicate clearly often lose control of their own outcomes.RELATED LINKSShlomit LibertyShlomit Liberty on LinkedInPatient Path NYCBoard Certified Patient AdvocateFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 2020, developmental biologist Dr. Crystal Rogers drove the country roads outside Davis, California crying between grant rejections, wondering whether she was about to lose her lab, her career, and the scientific future she had spent years building. She had already done what academia tells young scientists to do. She earned the credentials. She landed a faculty position at UC Davis. She built a lab. Then the real test began.On this episode of Standard Deviation, Dr. Oliver Bogler examines the unspoken rules that determine which scientists survive academic research and which quietly disappear from it. The conversation follows Crystal Rogers and cancer biologist Dr. Michelle Mendoza as they collide with the “Hidden Curriculum” of biomedical science: the unwritten rhetoric, institutional signaling, and grant writing strategies that often decide who receives funding, tenure, and long term stability.Michelle Mendoza entered a tenure track position at the Huntsman Cancer Institute while raising 3 children, navigating a divorce, and trying to secure major NIH funding during COVID. What looked like objective scientific review turned out to depend heavily on persuasion, presentation, and insider fluency. Established researchers could promise massive research agendas based on reputation alone. Junior investigators faced a completely different standard.Oliver traces how the Life Science Editors Foundation and its JEDI program intervened by pairing scientists with former editors from journals including Cell and Nature. The work had little to do with commas or grammar. Editors challenged logic, structure, and scientific framing before grant reviewers could destroy an application in public.Both researchers eventually secured career defining grants. One realized she would keep her job and not have to move her family. The other celebrated by ordering a personalized “DEV BIO” license plate and driving through Davis blasting nineties hip hop and Beyoncé.The episode exposes how biomedical research funding rewards institutional fluency as much as scientific talent, and how hidden systems inside academic medicine continue shaping who gets to stay in science long enough to make discoveries.RELATED LINKSDr. Crystal Rogers LinkedInDr. Crystal Rogers Faculty PageDr. Crystal Rogers LabDr. Michelle Mendoza LinkedInDr. Michelle Mendoza Faculty PageHuntsman Cancer Institute Mendoza LabLife Science Editors FoundationFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 2008, Katy Talento walked away from Capitol Hill and into a Catholic convent. Within a year, she walked out. Within another decade, she sat inside the White House shaping health policy. Somewhere in between, she got labeled “infertile” after a single cycle of testing and spent years believing it.That label stuck. The pain that came before it never got investigated. Doctors offered birth control and moved on. No one asked why her body was struggling. No one followed the thread.Talento built her career inside the very systems she now critiques. She worked on federal health policy, global disease programs, and later advised the Trump administration on healthcare reform. She helped advance price transparency rules in a system where hospitals can still list 457 different prices for the same service.Then she left.Now she builds employer health plans that bypass insurers, PBMs, and traditional networks. Her approach replaces insurance contracts with direct payment, nurse navigators, and cost sharing models that promise simplicity but raise hard questions about risk and protection.This conversation sits in that tension.Talento describes a healthcare system shaped by layered incentives, where insurers, hospitals, and intermediaries profit from complexity. She argues that employers hold the leverage to disrupt it. The host pushes on what happens when patients fall outside those structures, when contracts disappear, and when community based models fail.The episode moves through infertility, misdiagnosis, insurance design, and the mechanics of employer sponsored care. It tracks how policy decisions made in Washington ripple into exam rooms, billing departments, and family lives.It also confronts a harder truth.Even insiders who understand the system can still get caught in it.RELATED LINKSAllBetter HealthKaty TalentoThem Before UsAn Arm and a LegRelentless Health ValueFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In a wooded campground cabin in the early 2000s, 19 year old Ben Unger stood in the doorway and watched 20 naked men form a circle around a crying teenager. A counselor held up two tangerines and shouted, “These are your balls.” The exercise claimed to cure same sex attraction by forcing young men to “reclaim” their masculinity from overbearing mothers. Phones had been confiscated. Parents had paid thousands of dollars. Religion supplied the script. Pseudoscience supplied the props.Ben had grown up in an Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn and later studied in Israel to become a rabbi. When he admitted he felt attracted to men, rabbis told him to eat 7 figs a day, immerse in a ritual bath 5 times daily, or marry a woman and trust that “if there's friction, it works.” At 19, he entered conversion therapy through an organization called Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality, known as JONAH. He left with depression, religious trauma, and 6 months of silence toward the mother he had been taught to blame.Years later, represented by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Ben helped sue JONAH for consumer fraud in a landmark New Jersey case. The argument centered on evidence, not theology. Sexual orientation cannot be changed. The jury deliberated for 3 hours and ruled against the organization. The verdict helped reshape how states regulate conversion therapy and protect minors from psychological harm disguised as treatment.Today, Ben runs Buff Personal Training in New York City, a gym built on autonomy, mental health, and self respect. His story traces the arc from institutional control to self authorship. The conversation examines religion, LGBTQ rights, conversion therapy, consumer protection law, and the lasting cost of being told your identity is a disorder.RELATED LINKSBen Unger on LinkedInBen Unger on InstagramBUF Personal TrainingSouthern Poverty Law CenterJONAHFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Drew Flugstad-Clarke never planned to work in brain cancer. She planned to play Division I soccer at Georgetown. She planned to paint. She even tried investment banking, answering emails at 4am in a cubicle that never slept. Then in June 2022 her father, Jim, was diagnosed with glioblastoma at 57. He died 1 day shy of 7 months later, just before his 58th birthday. His symptoms began with emotion, not seizures. A steady HR executive suddenly cried. His golf game slipped. By the time he entered the hospital for a scan, he did not leave without surgery. A subway poster for a 5K became a lifeline. Drew showed up. She found a community. She later joined the American Brain Tumor Association as Community Manager for the Eastern Region. This conversation walks through anticipatory grief, caregiving in real time, strategic numbness, and what it costs to curate hope when the median survival clock is already ticking.RELATED LINKSDrew Clark Flukestad on LinkedInTopor StudiosAmerican Brain Tumor AssociationGeorgetown University Women's SoccerFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Modern medicine is not shaped by science alone. It is shaped by ethics, trust, and the difficult decisions made when technology moves faster than society can understand it.In this episode of Research Renaissance, legendary bioethicist Dr. Art Caplan reflects on a career that helped build the field of bioethics from the ground up. From surviving polio as a child to shaping national policies on organ transplantation, informed consent, and end-of-life care, Caplan offers a deeply personal and historically grounded perspective on how ethical thinking became essential to modern healthcare.The conversation explores the lingering distrust born from COVID-19, the ethical blind spots of artificial intelligence, the environmental cost of data infrastructure, and why communication between science and the public may be the most urgent challenge ahead.This episode is both a history lesson and a call to action. Ethics is not abstract philosophy. It is practical problem-solving for real people, real patients, and real consequences.Key TakeawaysBioethics emerged to solve real clinical dilemmas, not theoretical debates.Policies such as informed consent, brain-death standards, and organ allocation were shaped by early bioethics work.Public trust in medicine declined significantly after COVID-19 due to shifting scientific guidance and poor communication.AI introduces ethical risks beyond autonomy and bias, including environmental strain, privacy vulnerability, and unclear liability.The U.S. healthcare system's structure, not just its technology, drives many ethical failures.Ethics must move from academic journals into communities through direct engagement and public dialogue.  Guest SpotlightArt Caplan, PhDOne of the founders of modern bioethics, Dr. Caplan has advised governments, medical institutions, and research bodies on issues ranging from organ transplantation policy to emerging AI ethics. His work bridges philosophy, clinical medicine, and public engagement.Topics DiscussedOrigins of bioethics as a disciplineHuman subject protections and informed consentEnd-of-life decision frameworks and hospice careVaccine hesitancy and post-pandemic mistrustEthical governance of artificial intelligence in healthcareEnvironmental implications of digital infrastructureStructural inequities in U.S. healthcare deliveryThe role of communication in rebuilding scientific trustIf you found this conversation valuable:Follow Research Renaissance for more conversations at the intersection of science, policy, and human health.Share this episode with colleagues working in healthcare, research, or ethics.Leave a review to help more listeners engage with these critical discussions.To learn more about the breakthroughs discussed in this episode and to support ongoing research, visit our website at tofflertrust.org. Technical Podcast Support by Jon Keur at Wayfare Recording Co.

Janine Durso spent 30 years inside pharmaceutical advertising shaping healthcare narratives before becoming a belief strategist and founder of The Believist. In November 2024, during a routine Zoom coaching session, she felt what she called a sharp, terrible pain in the right side of her head. Within hours she was in surgery for a ruptured brain aneurysm. She does not remember the ambulance, the ICU, or the first weeks that followed. She spent 5 weeks in intensive care, then 10 days relearning how to walk, calculate simple change, and manage basic cognition. Doctors later placed a stent and continue monitoring a second unruptured aneurysm.This episode traces the moment she told her husband something broke in my brain, the 14 days doctors called touch and go, and the slow mental rebuild that followed. It also examines insurance barriers that require 2 direct relatives with aneurysms before screening coverage, and why she now lobbies in Washington for change.RELATED LINKSJanine DursoThe BelievistBrain Aneurysm FoundationWhite Plains HospitalDr. Jared CooperFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dr. Heavenly Kimes, known for "Married to Medicine," is making moves in Washington as she prepares for a congressional run in Georgia's 13th District. She shares how her experience as a dentist is shaping her policy priorities around health care access and affordability. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay informed with the latest news from a leading Black-owned & controlled media company: https://aurn.com/newsletter Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Rebecca Benghiat holds a JD, passed the bar, and skipped corporate law to build mental health systems instead. She now serves as Chief of Staff and Head of Impact at Inner Foundation, where she helps direct capital toward emerging adults ages 18 to 30 and asks a hard question every day: Is this actually working?In this conversation, she dismantles the myth of easy fixes. She explains why mental health measurement resists clean metrics, why a PHQ 9 score starts a conversation but never finishes one, and why “scale” often flatters institutions more than it helps people. She breaks down how impact investing shapes care delivery, why schools need networked systems not slogans, and why friction might be developmentally necessary.The stakes are real. Vulnerable families navigate snake oil, glossy apps, and pay to play algorithms while carrying the burden of choice in crisis. Benghiat lives inside that complexity and refuses to simplify it.RELATED LINKSRebecca BenghiatInner FoundationAspen Ideas HealthThe Jed FoundationFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

At age 12, Dr. Chrystal Starbird stood by a pond after turning her mother in to the police. She watched tadpoles and fish move beneath the surface and found a strange kind of order. Science became her refuge long before it became her career. Years later, she built that refuge into a profession. She now serves as an Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina, studies structural biology tied to cancer and Alzheimer's disease, and won Cell's first Rising Black Scientist Award in 2020. On paper, she fits the model of success. In practice, she had to fight for basic access at every stage.Conference travel required upfront cash she did not have. Networking favored pedigree over merit. Mentorship often depended on who knew your name in the room. Chrystal learned those rules, then chose to break them open for others.Oliver Bogler examines what Chrystal calls the advocacy tax. She has delivered over 70 invited talks. Nearly 40 percent focus on equity, mentorship, and policy. Academic reward systems do not count that labor toward tenure. She still does it.Through her leadership at the Life Science Editors Foundation, Chrystal helped build the JEDI program, which pairs underrepresented scientists with editors from journals like Cell and Nature. The program has supported over 100 awardees with more than 1,000 hours of mentorship. This episode exposes how biomedical science rewards output while ignoring the work required to make the system accessible. It also shows what happens when the people most affected refuse to step back.RELATED LINKSDr. Chrystal StarbirdStarbird LabLife Science Editors FoundationJEDI ProgramFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

At 19, Jansher Naim went from sharp stomach pain to a Stage 4 fibrolamellar diagnosis that few doctors see and even fewer young adults survive. He pushed through 41 rounds of chemotherapy, a Whipple surgery, and months of isolation while his friends kept moving through normal college life. In the studio, Jansher sits beside his mother Sadia Siddiqui, who refused early defeat and helped overhaul his care team when the first plan offered little optimism. Now a Computer Science student at Columbia, Jansher lives in the uneasy space between remission and risk, managing fertility decisions, travel for ongoing care, and the strange pressure to look fine at 22. Together they describe what it takes to grow up fast inside a system that rarely knows what to do with young adults who refuse to disappear.RELATED LINKSJansher NaimSadia SiddiquiFibroFighters FoundationColumbia UniversityFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jessica Federer built her career inside the rooms where science, money, and power collide. As the first female Chief Digital Officer at Bayer, she helped steer a 120,000 person global company through the rise of digital medicine while confronting a harder truth: women were excluded from U.S. clinical trials until 1993. In this conversation, she explains how decades of “first in man” research shaped drug development, why women experience side effects at nearly 2x the rate of men, and how guidance on sex based differences did not arrive from the FDA until December 2025. She shares what it means to sit on a Yale Institutional Review Board, why clinical trial stipends over $3,000 get taxed, and why she believes participants deserve tax credits instead. From GLP 1 profits to $40,000,000 women's health funds that barely move the needle, this episode names the gaps and the opportunity hiding inside them. RELATED LINKSJessica Federer on LinkedInJessica Federer on InstagramYale School of Public HealthHealth of Women Investor SummitFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Monique Gore Massey spent 2.5 years cycling through New York City emergency rooms while her body shut down. Fevers hit 105. Her weight dropped from 122 pounds to 72 in 3 months. Hair fell out in clumps. No one ran an ANA test. Doctors blamed stress, old sports injuries, migraines. When a physician finally named it lupus, she added that she hoped it was not. Months later, Monique heard the words “get your affairs in order.”In this episode, Monique details living with lupus nephritis, pericarditis, fibromyalgia, and the daily math of survival. She recounts arriving at a patient conference shortly after coming off crutches and requesting elevator access for support, only to face resistance at a health summit that claimed to center patients. She breaks down what it costs when industry extracts lived experience for free and calls it engagement. Listeners will hear what invisible illness looks like in real time, how bias delays diagnosis, and why advocacy without strategy leaves patients exploited instead of respected.RELATED LINKSMonique Gore MasseyLupus Foundation of AmericaFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Chris Klomp, Director of Medicare and Deputy Administrator of CMS, and Senior Advisor to HHS Secretary RFK Jr., has big ambitions to reshape how healthcare works in the United States.This week, ​​Steve sits down with Klomp to discuss how his experience as a digital health entrepreneur is guiding his current role overseeing a roughly $2 trillion department. Klomp shares the government's strategy for restoring trust between providers and payers, driving down costs, and addressing a system where approximately 90% of healthcare dollars are still spent in a fee-for-service arrangement. We cover:Why 90% of US healthcare remains fee-for-service after two decades of reform.The intentional design of the new Access model to be deflationary and fuel entrepreneurship among insurgents.The commitment from the payer industry to make prior authorization invisible to patients and providers by 2027.CMS's aggressive stance on data interoperability and funding enforcement against data blocking.How the Most Favored Nation policy is re-wiring global prescription drug supply to lower prices without compromising innovation.—About our guest: Chris Klomp is the Director of Medicare and Deputy Administrator of CMS, and Senior Advisor to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. With extensive experience in healthcare payment reform and data sharing, he built and led Collective Medical, the largest U.S. real-time care collaboration data network, acquired by PointClickCare in 2020. There, he partnered with health systems, plans, providers, post-acutes, and state governments to advance value-based care through enhanced data access and insights.Chris has driven healthcare reform at state and federal levels, focusing on value-based care and interoperable health technology. Through Endurance Companies, a San Francisco-based multi-family office he co-founded with Stanford classmates, he has co-founded, invested in, advised, and served on the board of many innovative healthcare organizations, including Nomi Health, Maven Clinic, InnovaCare Health, and Health Joy. He also served as a Utah Senate-confirmed commissioner of the Utah Digital Health Services Commission, where he focused on leveraging technology for cost-effective, healthier outcomes. Previously, he was Vice President in Bain Capital's North American Private Equity group and worked at Bain & Company. Recognized as Utah Business' CEO of the Year and EY's Mountain Region Entrepreneur of the Year, Chris holds a B.A. with honors in Economics and English from Brigham Young University and an MBA from Stanford.—

In this week's Healthcare Preview, Debbie Curtis and Rodney Whitlock join Erin Fuller to discuss key takeaways from the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee's latest affordability hearing, and what CMS's approval of Minnesota's Medicaid fraud corrective action plan signals about the future of federal healthcare fraud oversight.

Teresa Baglietto has lived through the kind of compounded harm that exposes how thin the safety net really is. In this episode she walks through a life shaped by medical neglect, personal violence, and the exhausting labor of self advocacy. She nearly died after a C section when hospital staff failed to confirm she had urinated before discharge, spending 15 days hospitalized and separated from her newborn while facing the possibility of permanent damage. In 2013 she discovered an aggressive breast cancer and waited weeks for test results and surgery while administrators stalled and passed responsibility. Care only moved forward after she threatened public exposure. Teresa also speaks openly about surviving rape in high school, losing her father to cancer at age 48 when she was 10, and growing up without reliable adults in the room. She explains why it took 7 years to write her book, why she launched a podcast, and how sales grit becomes a survival tool when patients must fight systems designed to delay them. The conversation stays specific, unsentimental, and grounded in consequence.RELATED LINKSTeresa Baglietto on LinkedInThe Ripple Effect by Teresa BagliettoIn Shock PodcastIn Shock Podcast on InstagramCanvas Rebel interview with Teresa BagliettoFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Science likes to call itself a meritocracy. Angela Anderson and Brandi Mattson know better. Both served as editors at elite journals (Cell and Neuron), where a single decision could determine who gets tenure, funding, or obscurity. They watched brilliant data get filtered out because the authors did not know the unwritten rules controlled by 5 dominant publishing houses with profit margins higher than Google.In 2020, amid pandemic shutdowns and national reckoning over racial injustice, they co-founded a nonprofit to expose that hidden curriculum. Through the JEDI program, they provide 10 hours of free editorial consulting to scientists who lack access to elite networks. In 1 year alone, 25 awards helped researchers salvage canceled grants, secure NSF career funding, and rebuild careers derailed by rejection.This episode pulls back the curtain on the multibillion dollar publishing engine that profits from taxpayer funded science and reveals who gets heard, who gets sidelined, and how insiders are choosing to redistribute power.RELATED LINKSAngela AndersonBrandy MattsonLife Science EditorsLife Science Editors FoundationCellNeuronNational Science FoundationFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today's episode of Out of Patients welcomes Dr Pamela Buchanan, an emergency room physician with over 20 years inside American medicine who refuses to sugarcoat what the job demands and what it destroys. She worked straight through COVID as protocols changed by the day and deaths arrived faster than anyone could process. She logged 80 to 100 hour weeks. She isolated from her family to avoid bringing the virus home. Over time, survival began to feel negotiable.Dr Buchanan speaks openly about burnout as emotional flatline and about physician suicide as a predictable outcome that leadership prefers to ignore. She describes the ER as the catch all for a broken system and explains why chronic care collapses there by design. She shares the reality of trying to access mental health care while still practicing medicine, calling dozens of therapists, getting nowhere, and spending $10,000 to $15,000 out of pocket just to stay alive and functional.Listeners will hear how neurodivergence shaped her career in emergency medicine, how race and trust intersect inside hospital walls, and why doctors are leaving in waves. This conversation carries clarity, anger, humor, and hard earned truth from someone who stayed long enough to name the damage.RELATED LINKSDr Pamela BuchananStrong MedicineDr Pamela Buchanan on LinkedInDr Pamela Buchanan on InstagramEmotional Flatline articleKevinMD essay by Dr Pamela BuchananFEEDBACKLike this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.