Out of Patients with Matthew Zachary

Matthew Zachary Worldwide

The longest-running independent healthcare podcast, Out of Patients with Matthew Zachary has supplied 19 years of unfiltered truth about American healthcare. The first online health podcast when it launched in 2007, it predates the medium itself. A 30-year brain cancer survivor, Matthew built the young adult cancer movement from scratch. Now he channels patient rage into political power, featuring on the air battle-scarred survivors, exhausted caregivers, and the rare insider brave enough to name what's killing us. Real stories from real people who refuse to accept that healthcare has to hurt this much. This is the show that started the conversation America is still not ready to finish.

  1. 1d ago ·  Bonus

    [HIATUS] The Cancer Mavericks EP3: The Navigator and the Negotiator

    In 1967, breast surgeon Dr. Harold P. Freeman arrived at Harlem Hospital expecting to treat cancer. Instead, he confronted a healthcare system where poverty, racism, lack of insurance, and institutional barriers often determined who lived long enough to receive treatment. Patients frequently arrived with advanced disease, not because medicine lacked answers, but because access to care had failed them. This episode explores how cancer survivorship expanded beyond medical breakthroughs to include healthcare access, health equity, and organized advocacy. Building on the early work of the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship (NCCS), it examines the recognition that surviving cancer depended not only on research, but also on whether patients could navigate a fragmented healthcare system. Freeman responded by creating one of the nation’s first patient navigation programs at Harlem Hospital in 1990. Community-based navigators helped patients overcome practical barriers including insurance, transportation, appointments, communication, and fear. The model dramatically improved timely diagnosis and treatment, increased breast cancer survival in Harlem, and ultimately inspired the Patient Navigator Outreach and Chronic Disease Prevention Act of 2005, establishing navigation as a cornerstone of modern oncology care. The episode also follows cancer survivor Ellen Stovall, whose leadership transformed survivorship into a national policy movement. Through the NCCS, she united advocates across cancer types, fought for insurance protections, expanded access to clinical trials, helped shape the creation of the Office of Cancer Survivorship at the National Cancer Institute, and organized the landmark 1998 National March for Cancer Survivorship in Washington, D.C. Her work reframed survivorship as a public policy issue rather than a personal experience. Together, Freeman and Stovall demonstrated that scientific progress alone could not eliminate disparities in cancer outcomes. Their work established two enduring principles that continue to shape oncology today: patients need someone to help them navigate care, and survivors must have a voice in the policies that govern it. Modern cancer survivorship depends on both. RELATED LINKS National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship⁠Harold P. Freeman Patient Navigation Institute⁠National Cancer Institute Office of Cancer Survivorship⁠Patient Navigator Outreach and Chronic Disease Prevention Act of 2005⁠American Cancer Society⁠Tuskegee Study Timeline | Centers for Disease Control and Prevention⁠ FEEDBACK Like this episode? Rate and review The Cancer Mavericks: A History of Survivorship on your favorite podcast platform. For more information, visit CancerMavericks.com. Please send any questions to podcasts@matthewzachary.com. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    [HIATUS] The Cancer Mavericks EP3: The Navigator and the Negotiator

  2. 2d ago ·  Bonus

    [BONUS] Subject Matter: Four Teenagers Built a Play From Scratch

    Welcome to a very, very, very special bonus episode of Out of Patients, and one unlike anything published on this feed before. For nearly 20 years, Matthew Zachary has handed these microphones to patients, caregivers, doctors, advocates, troublemakers, and people with something worth saying. This time, he handed them to his daughter. Hannah Greenzweig grew up around this show, and now she has commandeered the studio with 3 of her wonderfully creative high school friends to talk about something they built entirely themselves. There is an enormous amount of Dad Pride baked into this episode, along with the strange and wonderful realization that sometimes your kid grows up, takes your chair, takes your microphone, and produces a better show without you. Hannah Greenzweig, Michael Aidinov, Gwendolyn Baldini, and Astronomy are student artists from the Roundabout Youth Ensemble at James Madison High School in Brooklyn. Working alongside teaching artists from Roundabout Theatre Company, they spent a school year creating an original play from the ground up, writing every scene, developing every character, and producing the performance themselves. Instead of discussing a Broadway production, they dissect one they invented. Their play, Subject Matter, began with a room full of improbable ideas. Murderous bounce houses, pirate family sagas, underwater adventures, courtroom dance battles, and birthday parties at math museums all competed before the group settled on an absurd rivalry between New York’s fictional History Museum and Math Museum. From there, they built a fully staged comedy about institutional competition, sabotage, oversized personalities, and the unexpected discovery that history and mathematics need each other more than either side wants to admit. The conversation pulls back the curtain on a creative process most audiences never see. The students explain how scenes evolved through constant rewrites, how characters emerged from improvisation, how costumes came together with last minute ingenuity, and how rehearsals often collapsed into uncontrollable laughter. They recount cutting favorite ideas, solving production problems with limited resources, and trusting each other enough to keep rewriting until the story worked. The episode also captures something harder to script: teenagers speaking honestly about collaboration without adults translating their experience. They celebrate classmates who stepped into unexpected roles, teachers who quietly held the production together, and the strange joy of creating something that exists only because everyone showed up. It is a conversation about theater, friendship, education, creativity, and what happens when 4 young artists get the microphones and the adults get out of the way. RELATED LINKS Roundabout Theatre Company Roundabout Youth Ensemble James Madison High School FEEDBACK Like this bonus episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.com See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    [BONUS] Subject Matter: Four Teenagers Built a Play From Scratch

  3. 6d ago ·  Bonus

    Standard Deviation S2 E6: Margins of Error (Series Finale)

    A man is struck by a car on the streets of Los Angeles. In the emergency department, a CT scan ordered to look for traumatic injuries reveals something nobody expected: a mass in his colon. Days later, sitting across from Dr. Belinda Waltman, he calls the accident “a blessing in disguise.” Then he changes the subject. He is less worried about cancer than about whether he can afford to miss another day of work.   In this season finale of Standard Deviation, host Dr. Oliver Bogler explores what happens when biomedical science collides with the realities of the healthcare safety net. Dr. Waltman, a primary care physician in Los Angeles County, specializes in expedited cancer workups for uninsured and underinsured patients. Every diagnosis arrives carrying another set of questions about housing, transportation, food insecurity, wages, and survival that rarely appear in medical records or scientific literature.   For years, Waltman carried those stories without knowing how to bring them into the academic record. As a full-time clinician without a research lab, grant funding, or publication pipeline, she faced barriers familiar to many working scientists and physicians whose most important observations happen outside traditional research settings. With support from the Life Science Editors Foundation’s JEDI program, those experiences became The Margins Matter, a narrative medicine essay published in JAMA that argues the social realities surrounding cancer care are not background details. They are part of the disease itself.   Bogler traces how editorial mentorship transformed lived clinical experience into published scholarship while asking a larger question about who gets to shape the scientific record. The conversation examines cancer care, Medicaid, health-related social needs, medical publishing, and the structural incentives that determine which stories become evidence and which disappear from view. The result is a conversation about documentation, visibility, and why the margins of medicine often determine who survives long enough to benefit from its advances. RELATED LINKS Dr. Belinda Waltman⁠ The Margins Matter | JAMA⁠ The Margins Matter | PubMed⁠ Life Science Editors Foundation⁠ FEEDBACK Like this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.com See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Standard Deviation S2 E6: Margins of Error (Series Finale)

  4. Aug 11 ·  Bonus

    [HIATUS] The Cancer Mavericks EP2: You’re Cured, Good Luck

    In 1986, 23 survivors, physicians, nurses, attorneys, and community organizers gathered in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for a weekend that would permanently change the language and politics of cancer. Working late into the night, they debated not only strategy, but identity, ultimately declaring that from the moment of diagnosis, every person with cancer is a survivor. This episode traces the social and political forces that gave birth to the modern cancer survivorship movement. As advances in early detection and treatment allowed more people to live beyond cancer, survivors discovered that finishing treatment did not mean returning to normal life. Many faced employment discrimination, loss of insurance, social stigma, infertility, chronic health complications, and a healthcare system that viewed survival as the end of care rather than the beginning of a new chapter. Against the backdrop of the civil rights, disability rights, and community health movements of the 1960s and 1970s, physicians, activists, and survivors challenged medicine’s paternalistic culture and demanded a greater voice in decisions affecting their lives. Central to this story are physician and survivor Dr. Fitzhugh Mullan, whose landmark 1985 essay, Seasons of Survival, redefined survivorship as a lifelong continuum, and community organizer Katherine Logan, whose determination united dozens of grassroots organizations into what became the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship. The coalition’s founding established principles that continue to shape oncology today. Survivors were no longer defined solely by disease or treatment outcomes. Their experiences became evidence. Their voices became essential to clinical research, healthcare policy, and patient advocacy. By redefining survivorship as an ongoing experience rather than a destination, the movement challenged medicine to recognize the lasting physical, emotional, financial, and social consequences of cancer. The ideas forged during that weekend in Albuquerque became the foundation of modern cancer survivorship. Nearly 40 years later, the coalition’s defining principle, that survivorship begins at diagnosis, continues to influence cancer care, research, policy, and the way millions of people understand life after cancer. RELATED LINKS National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship⁠National Cancer Institute Office of Cancer Survivorship⁠The New England Journal of Medicine⁠Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA.gov)⁠Library of Congress | Civil Rights History Project⁠White Coat, Clenched Fist by Fitzhugh Mullan⁠ FEEDBACK Like this episode? Rate and review The Cancer Mavericks: A History of Survivorship on your favorite podcast platform. For more information, visit CancerMavericks.com. Please send any questions to podcasts@matthewzachary.com. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    [HIATUS] The Cancer Mavericks EP2: You’re Cured, Good Luck

  5. Aug 6 ·  Bonus

    [HIATUS] The Cancer Mavericks EP1: The Big C Wasn’t Always on TV

    In 1971, President Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer Act, transforming cancer research with an unprecedented federal investment and launching what became known as the War on Cancer. The legislation did not emerge from scientific discovery alone. It was the culmination of decades of relentless advocacy by researchers, philanthropists, journalists, and patients who believed cancer demanded the same national commitment that had put astronauts on the Moon. This episode traces the origins of the cancer survivorship movement by returning to a time when cancer was rarely discussed in public, many physicians withheld diagnoses from their patients, and surgery offered few lasting cures. It follows the pioneering work of pathologist Dr. Sidney Farber, whose early chemotherapy research challenged conventional thinking, and Mary Lasker, whose political strategy, fundraising, and public campaigns helped transform cancer from a private tragedy into a national public health priority. Together, they built the coalition that reshaped federal support for oncology research and forever changed the relationship between science, government, and the American public. The story then turns to journalist and breast cancer survivor Rose Kushner, whose refusal to accept the standard one-step radical mastectomy challenged nearly a century of surgical dogma. Working alongside surgeon Dr. Bernard Fisher, Kushner helped bring evidence-based medicine to breast cancer treatment through randomized clinical trials that demonstrated less invasive surgery could achieve equivalent outcomes. Their efforts changed clinical practice, strengthened informed consent, and helped establish the principle that patients should participate in decisions about their own care. The breakthroughs explored in this episode extended far beyond new treatments. They redefined the role of patients in medicine, accelerated clinical research, and laid the foundation for modern cancer survivorship. The movement that followed would not simply help more people live longer. It would change what surviving cancer meant. RELATED LINKS National Cancer Institute⁠National Cancer Act of 1971⁠American Cancer Society⁠Dana-Farber Cancer Institute⁠National Library of Medicine⁠The New England Journal of Medicine⁠ FEEDBACK Like this episode? Rate and review The Cancer Mavericks: A History of Survivorship on your favorite podcast platform. For more information, visit CancerMavericks.com. Please send any questions to podcasts@matthewzachary.com. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    [HIATUS] The Cancer Mavericks EP1: The Big C Wasn’t Always on TV

  6. Aug 4 ·  Bonus

    [HIATUS] The Cancer Mavericks Goes to Hollywood (With My Mom)

    Long before cancer survivors organized into a movement, Hollywood had already shaped how Americans understood the disease. Films rarely used the word “cancer,” physicians often withheld diagnoses from patients, and the people who survived were almost nowhere to be found on screen. Recorded before The Cancer Mavericks: A History of Survivorship became a documentary series, this bonus conversation explores where the project first began. Matthew Zachary sits down with his mother, Roz Greenzweig, a retired educator and lifelong film enthusiast whose memories of classic cinema became an unexpected lens for understanding how cancer was portrayed throughout the twentieth century. Together, they revisit landmark films including Dark Victory, Love Story, and other iconic portrayals that reflected an era when cancer was treated as unspeakable, inevitable, and almost always fatal. Their conversation contrasts those carefully constructed Hollywood narratives with the lived reality of a family confronting a brain cancer diagnosis in 1995, revealing how popular culture both reflected and reinforced the fears surrounding the disease. The discussion also foreshadows many of the themes explored throughout the documentary series: the evolution of patient advocacy, the emergence of cancer survivorship, the role of caregivers, and the power of storytelling to influence public understanding. Before policy changed, before advocacy organizations grew into national movements, conversations like these were already challenging long-held assumptions about what cancer looked like and who had the right to tell its story. Consider this the prologue to The Cancer Mavericks. Before the movement found its history, it began with a family trying to make sense of the stories they had inherited. RELATED LINKS American Cancer Society⁠National Cancer Institute⁠American Film Institute⁠ER (NBC)⁠50/50 (Official)⁠Chasing Life (ABC Family Archive)⁠ FEEDBACK Like this episode? Rate and review The Cancer Mavericks: A History of Survivorship on your favorite podcast platform. For more information, visit CancerMavericks.com. Questions? Email podcasts@matthewzachary.com. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    [HIATUS] The Cancer Mavericks Goes to Hollywood (With My Mom)

  7. Jul 28

    Your Benefits May Vary: Rebecca Bloom

    Rebecca Bloom is a former employee benefits and executive compensation attorney who spent more than 25 years helping women navigate cancer, work, insurance, disability coverage, and financial survival. She is the founder and author of When Women Get Sick, a book built from decades inside the legal, workplace, and patient advocacy systems most people only discover after diagnosis. Bloom started in Big Law at Simpson Thacher handling employee benefits and compensation work she originally chose to pay off student loans. Then her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Suddenly the language she used in corporate law offices became the language of survival at home. Explanation of benefits forms. Coverage disputes. Second opinions. Disability protections. Medical leave. Bills no one could explain. That collision changed the direction of her life. In this episode, Bloom explains how serious illness quietly turns patients into unpaid administrators managing paperwork, logistics, financial risk, and emotional labor while trying to survive treatment. She breaks down how employer based health insurance shapes nearly every aspect of cancer care in America and why women often carry the invisible burden of protecting everyone else from discomfort while they themselves fall apart. The conversation digs into workplace power, the illusion of the healthcare “safety net,” caregiver exhaustion, and the class divide hiding underneath patient empowerment culture. Bloom explains why educated, insured women with resources still struggle to navigate healthcare bureaucracy and what happens to patients without those advantages. This episode explores cancer care, health insurance, employee benefits, patient advocacy, workplace protections, caregiving, and the structural incentives that force sick people to become project managers of their own survival. RELATED LINKS Rebecca Bloom When Women Get Sick Bay Area Cancer Connections Simpson Thacher & Bartlett FEEDBACK Like this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.com See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Your Benefits May Vary: Rebecca Bloom

  8. Jul 21

    Mission, Margin, and the Women Left Waiting: Vasanta Pundarika

    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 LINKS Vasanta Pundarika Lotuspring Women’s Health Horizons Sakhi for South Asian Survivors NACD Princeton University Anthropology Department FEEDBACK Like this episode? Rate and review Out of Patients on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship email podcasts@matthewzachary.com See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Mission, Margin, and the Women Left Waiting: Vasanta Pundarika
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About

The longest-running independent healthcare podcast, Out of Patients with Matthew Zachary has supplied 19 years of unfiltered truth about American healthcare. The first online health podcast when it launched in 2007, it predates the medium itself. A 30-year brain cancer survivor, Matthew built the young adult cancer movement from scratch. Now he channels patient rage into political power, featuring on the air battle-scarred survivors, exhausted caregivers, and the rare insider brave enough to name what's killing us. Real stories from real people who refuse to accept that healthcare has to hurt this much. This is the show that started the conversation America is still not ready to finish.

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