Out of Patients
with Matthew Zachary
Welcome to 2026: The Year of the Patient where the sick shall inherit the ballot.
The Resilience Playbook: Cancer, Congenital Chutzpah, And Why American Healthcare Is Exhausting Everybody
Thirty years after brain cancer changed his life, Matthew Zachary joins The Resilience Playbook to discuss resilience, American healthcare, employer benefits, and why building a national patient constituency might accomplish what decades of traditional advocacy haven't.
How Do You Create Demand for Something Nobody Wants?
For 20 years, I’ve built healthcare brands for markets nobody wants to need. From Stupid Cancer to We the Patients, I’ve learned that the hardest part isn’t creating demand. It’s giving people a way to recognize something that was already there.
The Future Looked Strangely Familiar: A Love Letter To The CancerBuddy Mobile App
In 2014, we built “Match.com for cancer.” It eventually died. The idea didn’t. Twelve years later, a CancerBuddy retreat sent me looking back at 30 years of survivorship, community, failure, progress, and the shoulders we stand on.
RosettaFest 2026: I Didn’t Expect Employer-Sponsored Healthcare to Restore My Faith in American Healthcare
I went to RosettaFest expecting to give a keynote. I left with the Marshall Allen Award and a completely different understanding of employer-sponsored healthcare, patient advocacy, and why the companies we work for may be one of the most overlooked forces shaping American healthcare.
The Most Important Story at ASCO 2026 Wasn’t the Science
ASCO 2026 delivered extraordinary advances in cancer research, including a standing ovation for a pancreatic cancer breakthrough. Yet the dominant conversation centered on something else: the widening gap between scientific innovation and patients’ ability to access it.
Out of Patients?
Join the recurring Out of Patients dispatch from Matthew Zachary covering the latest American healthcare shenanigans. Essays, podcast episodes, media appearances, book updates, and live events delivered with a sardonic Gen X perspective from a patient who simply refuses to shut up.
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