Out of Patients with Matthew Zachary

Matthew Zachary Worldwide
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The longest-running independent healthcare podcast, Out of Patients with Matthew Zachary has supplied 17 years of unfiltered truth about American healthcare. 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. It’s real stories from real people who refuse to accept that healthcare has to hurt this much. New listeners come for the truth. They stay because finally someone's saying what they've been screaming.

  1. Callus on Your Soul: Jenny Opalinski

    2D AGO

    Callus on Your Soul: Jenny Opalinski

    Jenny Opalinski has spent more than a decade inside hospitals where people lose the ability to speak, breathe, swallow, and sometimes survive. A medical speech language pathologist by training, she worked in ICU, neuro rehab, and long term acute care settings, including a Level 1 trauma center, where she watched clinicians absorb 10 to 15 traumatic events in a single shift and then get told to move the crash cart faster next time. That lived reality pushed her to co found The Wellness Shift, an advocacy and education platform focused on healthcare worker burnout, suicide, and assault. In this conversation, Opalinski walks through the moment that changed everything for her: standing in a hospital hallway listening to a family wail after a failed code, followed by a debrief that addressed logistics and ignored grief entirely. She also explains how that work led to Humanity Rx, her podcast about the human cost of medicine, and Dragon’s Breath: Calming Tricks for Big Feelings, a children’s book that translates evidence based breathing and regulation strategies into language kids can actually use. The episode covers moral injury, time scarcity, false wellness, respiratory muscle training, and why empathy keeps getting treated as an optional expense instead of clinical infrastructure. RELATED LINKS Jenny Opalinski on LinkedIn The Wellness Shift Humanity Rx Dragon’s Breath: Calming Tricks for Big Feelings Aspire Respiratory Products 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.

    40 min
  2. Reclaiming the Vowels: Sarah Gromko

    FEB 17

    Reclaiming the Vowels: Sarah Gromko

    Sarah Gromko and Matthew Zachary go back to SUNY Binghamton in the early 1990s, when they were barely 19 and living inside rehearsal rooms. She starred in campus musical theater productions. He served as pianist and music director for many of those shows and played rehearsal piano for the THEA101 repertory company. This episode reunites two former theater nerds who grew up and took very different paths through art, illness, and work that still circles the same truth. Gromko trained as a singer and composer, studied film scoring at Berklee College of Music, worked in New York and New Orleans, then moved into healthcare as a speech language pathologist and recognized vocologist. She explains aphasia, apraxia, dysarthria, and dysphagia with clarity earned from the clinic. She recounts helping a 16 year old gunshot survivor in New Orleans speak again using Melodic Intonation Therapy. The conversation covers voice banking for ALS, gender affirming voice care, and the damage caused when medicine confuses speech loss with intelligence loss. The result feels like an epic reunion powered by 1990s nostalgia and sharpened by decades of lived consequence. RELATED LINKS Sarah Gromko Gramco Voice Melodic Intonation Therapy 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.

    38 min
  3. Artificially Intelligent and Naturally Irreverent

    FEB 10

    Artificially Intelligent and Naturally Irreverent

    Matt Hampton and Dr Tom Ingegno came into my world the way the best guests always do. They found me first. They pulled me onto their Irreverent Health Podcast, a show that blends medicine, curiosity, and unapologetic nonsense the same way Gen X kids blended Saturday morning cartoons with nuclear-war anxiety. We recorded together, we went off the rails together, and by the end I told them the rule. If you ever come to New York, you sit in my studio. No exceptions. They showed up. They took the hot seat. They told Alexa to shut up. They joked about Postmates. They compared bifocals before I even hit record. From there it turned into a full blown eighties time machine powered by weed policy, AI diagnostics, acupuncture philosophy, art school trauma, cannabis data science, paranormal detours, and the kind of deep cut pop culture references only Gen X survivors can decode. Matt builds AI systems. Tom heals people with needles and a lifetime of East Asian medicine. Together they make healthcare funny without pretending it works. They remind you that curiosity carries weight when the system collapses under its own stupidity. This episode is a reunion of three loudmouths raised on Atari, late night cable, and the hard lesson that you either tell the truth or get flattened by it. Go subscribe to Irreverent Health. These guys earned it. RELATED LINKS • Irreverent Health Podcast • Matt Hampton – Consilium Institute • Envoy Design • Dr. Tom Ingegno – Charm City Integrative Health • The Cupping Book • You Got Sick—Now What? • Matt Hampton on LinkedIn • Dr. Tom Ingegno on LinkedIn 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.

    45 min
  4. Good Morning, Cancer

    FEB 3

    Good Morning, Cancer

    Bill Thach has had 9 lines of treatment, over 1,000 doses of chemo, and more scans than an airport. He runs ultramarathons for fun. He jokes about being his own Porta Potty. He became a father, then got cancer while his daughter was 5 months old. Today she is 8. He hides the worst of it so she can believe he stands strong, even when he knows that hiding has a cost. We talk about the illusion of strength, what it means to look fine when your body is falling apart, and how a random postcard in an MD Anderson waiting room led him to Man Up to Cancer, where he now leads Diversity and AYA Engagement.  Fatherhood. Rage. Sex. Denial. Humor. Survival. All that and why the words good morning can act like a lifeline. RELATED LINKS Fight Colorectal CancerCURE TodayINCA AllianceMan Up to CancerWeeViewsYouTubeLinkedIn 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.

    43 min
  5. Lead (Poisoning), Laugh, Love with Shannon Burkett

    JAN 27

    Lead (Poisoning), Laugh, Love with Shannon Burkett

    Shannon Burkett has lived about six lives. Broadway actor. SNL alum. Nurse. Filmmaker. Advocate. Cancer survivor. And the kind of person who makes you question what you’ve done with your day. She wrote and produced My Vagina—the stop-motion musical kind, not the cry-for-help kind—and built a global movement after her son was poisoned by lead dust in their New York apartment.  Out of that came LEAD: How This Story Ends Is Up to Us, a documentary born from rage, science, and maternal defiance. We talked about everything from The Goonies to Patrick Stewart to the quiet rage of parenting in a country that treats public health like a hobby.  This episode is about art, anger, resilience, and what happens when an unstoppable theater nerd turned science geek Jersey girl collides with an immovable healthcare system. RELATED LINKS Shannon Burkett Official SiteLEAD: How This Story Ends Is Up to UsEnd Lead PoisoningLinkedIn: Shannon BurkettBroadwayWorld Profile 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.

    52 min
  6. [WALK IT OFF EP3] CHRONIC ZEN

    JAN 20 · BONUS

    [WALK IT OFF EP3] CHRONIC ZEN

    Michael Kramer was 19 when cancer ambushed his life. He went from surfing Florida beaches to chemo, radiation, and a bone marrow transplant that left him alive but carrying a chronic disease. He had necrosis in his knees and elbows, lost his ability to surf for years, and found himself stuck in hospitals instead of the ocean. Yet he adapted. Michael picked up a guitar, built Lego sets, led support groups, and started sharing his story on Instagram and TikTok. We talk about masculinity, identity, and what happens when the thing that defines you gets stripped away. He opens up about dating in Miami, freezing sperm at a children’s hospital, awkward Uber-for-sperm moments with his brother, and how meditation became survival. Michael lost his father to cancer when he was a teen, and that grief shaped how he lives and advocates today. He is funny, grounded, and honest about the realities of survivorship in your twenties. This episode shows what resilience looks like when you refuse to walk it off and choose to speak it out loud instead. RELATED LINKS Michael Kramer on InstagramMichael Kramer on TikTokMichael and Mom Inspire on YouTubeAshlee Cramer's BookUniversity of Miami Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer CenterStupid Cancer  FEEDBACK Like this episode? Rate and review Walk It Off on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship inquiries, email podcast@matthewzachary.com See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    28 min
  7. [WALK IT OFF EP2] ROCKS NEED ROCKS

    JAN 13 · BONUS

    [WALK IT OFF EP2] ROCKS NEED ROCKS

    Daniel Garza had momentum. Acting roles, directing gigs, national tours lined up. Then anal cancer stopped everything. Radiation wrecked his body, stripped him of control, and left him in diapers, staring down despair. His partner, Christian Ramirez, carried him through the darkest nights, changed his wounds, fought hospitals, and paid the price with his own health. Christian still lives with permanent damage from caregiving, but he stayed anyway. Together they talk with me about masculinity, sex, shame, friendship, and survival. They describe the friendships that vanished, the laughter that kept them alive, and the brutal reality of caregiving no one prepares you for. We get into survivor guilt, PTSD, and why even rocks need rocks. Daniel is now an actor, director, and comedian living with HIV. Christian continues to tell the unfiltered truth about what it takes to be a caregiver and stay whole. This episode gives voice to both sides of the cancer experience, the survivor and the one who stands guard.   RELATED LINKS Daniel Garza IMDbDaniel Garza on InstagramDaniel Garza on FacebookChristian Ramirez on LinkedInLilmesican Productions Inc (Daniel & Christian)Stupid Cancer  FEEDBACK Like this episode? Rate and review Walk It Off on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship inquiries, email podcast@matthewzachary.com See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    24 min
  8. [WALK IT OFF EP1] MAN UP

    JAN 6 · BONUS

    [WALK IT OFF EP1] MAN UP

    Trevor Maxwell lived the archetype of masculinity in rural Maine. Big, strong, splitting wood, raising kids, and carrying the load. Then cancer ripped that script apart. In 2018 he was bedridden, emasculated, ashamed, and convinced his family would be better off without him. His wife refused to let him disappear. That moment forced Trevor to face his depression, get help, and rebuild himself. Out of that came Man Up To Cancer, now the largest community for men with cancer, a place where men stop pretending they are bulletproof and start being honest with each other. Eric Charsky joins the conversation. A veteran with five cancers, forty-nine surgeries, and the scars to prove it, Eric lays out what happens when the military’s invincible mindset collides with mortality. Together, we talk masculinity, vulnerability, sex, shame, and survival. This episode is blunt, raw, and overdue. RELATED LINKS Man Up To CancerTrevor Maxwell on LinkedInDempsey CenterEric Charsky on LinkedInStupid Cancer  FEEDBACK Like this episode? Rate and review Walk It Off on your favorite podcast platform. For guest suggestions or sponsorship inquiries, email podcast@matthewzachary.com See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    33 min
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4.9
out of 5
155 Ratings

About

The longest-running independent healthcare podcast, Out of Patients with Matthew Zachary has supplied 17 years of unfiltered truth about American healthcare. 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. It’s real stories from real people who refuse to accept that healthcare has to hurt this much. New listeners come for the truth. They stay because finally someone's saying what they've been screaming.

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