I learned a lot from my guest today, and I mean A LOT. For example, I had no idea that humans have something called the "Adaptive Immune System." Nor did I know — although I had my suspicions — why it seems that everyone is allergic to everything these days, yet, growing up in the 70s and 80s, no one was allergic to anything. My guest, Meenal Lele, host of the fantastic podcast "Fixing Sick," received two back-to-back Science degrees from Wharton and UPenn in the same year. That background came in extremely handy when her newborn nearly died from an undiagnosed food allergy. She went into advocacy beast mode, taking on the food allergy ecosystem. The result is years of research, data, and new facts that blew my mind and will hopefully blow yours. Did you know that no one is born with food allergies? And that, through shitty US-only ingredients in our food and the hyper-sanitization and "Over-Purell-ification" of society, we've completely eroded our natural immunity to ordinary things that our species has historically never had to worry about for thousands of years? Necessity is the mother of invention, and Meenal's ingenuity has resulted in her founding Lil Mixins, purveyors of solutions to help stop food allergies in infants before they start. Yes, you heard right. Enjoy the show.

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Original Air Date 3/16/2022 — Dr. Tania Small is the Vice President and Global Medical Oncology Head at GSK. She started her career as a pediatric oncologist and realized that her passion for helping patients would drastically accelerate by transitioning to the R&D side of healthcare. She did just that, as you'll hear in this episode when she describes how it felt to see her first FDA-approved medication prescribed to treat thousands more patients than she could have ever helped individually. Her latest passion is serving the GYN/ONC research community and sharing with Matthew the many new challenges and opportunities industry is tackling head-on to put the patient more at the center of care. Also, what role can women take in getting ahead of these diseases, and how can we collaborate to help patients survive and thrive? Also, what does she see as the most revolutionary biotech innovations on the horizon for women living with cancer? Medical progress can only do so much if patients have trouble accessing care, and Covid-19 has made us painfully aware of the racial and socioeconomic gaps in healthcare access. How do we break down those access barriers and help underserved communities get the services they need?

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This ad-free episode of Out of Patients is made possible by our partner, GlaxoSmithKline(GSK), a science-led global healthcare company with a special purpose to improve the quality of human life by helping people do more, feel better, live longer. For more information, please visit https://www.gsk.com.

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Original Air Date 3/15/2022 — On the show today, I talk to Zach Fink, CEO, and Co-Founder at VyTrac, a telehealth company. Zach started his career as an EMT before using his emergency medical skills as a disaster relief worker. Deeply passionate about healthcare access, he founded VyTrac to use remote technology to bring medical services to underserved populations. Zach is ALSO passionate about ’90s pop culture so we go deep on everything millennial from the proto-Internet to Olive Garden breadsticks and boy bands before we seamlessly transition to a discussion on the dark underbelly of our health care system, NBD.

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Original Air Date 03/31/2022 — FDA, No effing way!

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Original Air Date 1/1/2022 — I had the absolute privilege of welcoming the late Kasey Altman to OffScrip Health Studios in NYC earlier this year for an interview on my show. While it's nearly impossible to put into words all that she was, is, and will forever be, Kasey is the rare exception to the metaphoric rule of having to "pick your favorite kid". Her charm, charisma, and creative intellect alone would have been enough to put her on a Mount Rushmore of cancer advocates, but her no-BS precociousness that led this Google exec to launch a hackathon to help develop a cure for her type of cancer (fusion-positive alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma) blew the doors off any perception of what I thought advocacy meant. Kasey lit up every room brighter than possible with her very being, and her podcast, The Reroute, was appointment listening for me and for thousands of listeners around the world. After road-tripping across the U.S. and enrolling in different clinical trials for months, tragic inevitability caught up with her. Kasey was wise beyond her years with an infectious laugh and lust for life way beyond anything a cat poster has to offer. She will be missed but her footprint will live on in us. Our conversation will be cherished for all time.

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Original Air Date 02/10/2022 — Got orange sauce?

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Original Air Date 12/28/2021 — Today I talk to writer, influencer, and breast cancer survivor extraordinaire, Megan-Claire Chase. When Megan-Claire got her cancer diagnosis in 2015, her life took a big left turn. Her health and her future were suddenly thrown off course. But Megan-Claire also learned new things about herself. She discovered her knack for writing when she began documenting her cancer journey. Her blog, Life on the Cancer Train, became a runaway success, and Warrior Megsie, Megan-Claire’s online persona, was born! She has since written for Cancer Health magazine, co-authored an academic paper, and has been featured in The New York Times and People magazine. What’s next, a one-woman show? 

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In today's whirlwind bonus episode, I proudly welcome Dr. Robyn Schlicher, mental health advocate and Vice President of Business Development at Pear Bio. Robyn's backstory is profoundly personal and evocative of a young person trying to make sense of their life living on the autism spectrum and coping with the fundamentals of mania, euphoria, depression, and entrepreneurialism. Her role in the healthcare universe is that of a sherpa assisting pharma and providers in ensuring the drugs actually work first before getting to patients. She's a passionate, no-BS advocate who talks fast, so prepare for an invigorating rollercoaster ride of wry wit and frenetic authenticity.

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Original Air Date 01/20/2022 — Find out why you shouldn't kiss your chinchillas.

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Original Air Date 11/09/2021 — Ritesh Patel is Senior Partner, Global Digital Health at FINN Partners. He is a digital evangelist and has been evangelizing digital since the early days of the dot com boom in the late 1990s. As a young man, he joined Agency.com and quickly began to consult with major fortune 500 companies to evangelize the merits of the World Wide Web. (Remember that term, kids?) He's recently taken his mission on the road to speak at a wide variety of digital and healthcare-centered events worldwide, focusing primarily on digital strategy, tools, platforms, and ecosystems in Healthcare and Health Systems.

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Original Air Date 01/13/2022 — In this episode of Vax On, Matthew Zachary and Elura Nanos discuss the Supreme Court’s COVID-19 precautions during Tuesday’s oral arguments. They also discuss a nationwide COVID-19 testing shortage and NYC Mayor Eric Adams’ questionable remarks about the city’s workforce.

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Original Air Date 7/13/2021 — On the show today, it's a spotlight on NAMAPA (National Association of Medication Access & Patient Advocacy) with Co-Founders Elizabeth Johnson LPN and Melissa Paige, CPhT. Liz started her career in immunology and moved into the world of "medication access," which is healthcare between the patient and the doctor, where issues of access, pricing, prescriptions, and navigating the complexities of the system are all managed on behalf of the patient. As a certified Pharmacy Tech, Melissa lives in a world of reimbursement and access challenges in her previous roles, which is also code for "how medicine gets to the patient." NAMAPA is the presenting sponsor of the inaugural Healthcare Advocate Summit for Advocates by Advocates held on September 8-10 in Galveston Island, Texas. This conference is slated to be the premier event for anyone involved in patient access, navigation, and reimbursement. Learn more at https://www.healthcareadvocatesummit.com.

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Matthew Zachary and Elura Nanos nerd out over a COVID-19 liability case, eradicating raisins and a Polio surprise...

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On the show today, I welcome Claire O'Bryan, certified nurse practitioner, rabble-rouser, wellness warrior, host of the DabbleCo Podcast, and Co-Founder of The Skin Clique. The DabbleCo Podcast is the latest addition to the OffScrip Health Podcast Network, and, I promise you, it's well worth your time to subscribe to this show wherever you already listen to your podcasts. Claire joined me in studio for a fabulous discussion about the trials, tribulations, and modern-day challenges facing nurses and NPs against the backdrop of burnout and mental health. We also dive into the ridiculous jargon and artificial language woven into consumer consciousness that tricks us into thinking everyday foods and health/beauty products are good for us—words like "All natural," "Organic," "Homemade," and so on. Twas a great chat with an incredibly talented and inspiring human. Enjoy the show.

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Space cancer vs monkeypox, self-cleaning iguanas, and David Schwimmer.

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Today on the show, I proudly welcome New York Times bestselling author Dr. Theresa Brown, RN. Her new book, "Healing: When a Nurse Becomes a Patient," is now available in hardcover, and what read it is. Theresa has a phenomenal sense of humor and an inherently advantageous perspective on the inner workings of healthcare. Yet, when the coin flipped, she found herself a fish out of water while still swimming in the fishbowl. So, brace yourself for the usual 80s nostalgia train combined with some horrible Dad jokes, a smidgen of survivor guilt, and a wild ride through the "cancer is a contest" theater of the absurd. Fun fact: This episode may be the first show I've ever done that channels Fast times at Ridgemont High and Ferris Bueller through the lens of nursing while throwing tons of shade at Grey's Anatomy. Oh, one last thing. We had a couple of sound glitches during the show, and my editor Kyle did his best to compensate for it. So please forgive any blips, bleeps, and weird stuff. So without further ado, I present Theresa Brown. Enjoy the show.

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Matthew Zachary and Guest host Stephanie Santoriello break down this week's Covid-19 news.

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On the show today, I'm thrilled to welcome in-studio Michelle Juhanson, VP, Chief of Staff II at Magellan Rx Management. First off, unlike Lethal Weapon 2 and Godfather 2, her role as "Chief Of Staff II" is not a sequel. Second, her company is a PBM, which, for the cheap seats in the back, stands for "Pharmacy Benefit Management Company." What does that mean? These folks work tirelessly behind the scenes, trench-warfare-style, to make sure the right medication gets to the right patient at the right time while dealing with bureaucratic nonsense from health systems, insurance companies, and related dumbfuckery. What's super cool about Michelle is that she's a multilingual, multicultural, global citizen, which means she has a perspective on the over/under of health systems outside the US. As par for the course, prepare yourself for all the 80s pop culture references you can muster and a trip down IMDB lane. Oh, and did I also mention she's a young adult cancer survivor? Enjoy the show.

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SCOTUS rules against hospitals, covid testing is precarious, and mice deliver an important message.

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Today on the show, I welcome Karen Haberberg, a New York-based photographer and the author of several books, one of which is called An Ordinary Day: Kids with Rare Genetic Conditions. Karen's father was himself a photographer who taught her how to shoot when she was in middle school. Like father, like daughter, she was quickly drawn to the art of storytelling through the camera lens and found her voice in capturing the humanity within children of rare disease. Our conversation took us in many directions, not the least of which included the careful craftsmanship and interpersonal disciple it requires to embrace these children as if they were her own to represent humanity and dignity rather than pity. Karen's images have been showcased in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Huffington Post, Good Morning America, New York 1, and others. Lastly, as fellow Gen-X'ers, we channel the love/hate relationship we had with Fotomat back in the 1990s and the over/under of running out of flashcubes in the middle of a night shoot. For more information about Karen, visit https://www.karenhaberberg.com.

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