THE PEOPLE’S
VOICE IN
HEALTHCARE
CANCER SURVIVOR
KEYNOTE
SPEAKER
Author
Provocateur
Movement Builder
30-Year Brain Cancer Survivor.
ABOUT MATTHEW ZACHARY
Matthew Zachary does not give survivor speeches. He gives rooms full of healthcare executives, clinicians, pharma leaders, employers, and policymakers a perspective they cannot get from anyone else on a stage: 30 years on the receiving end of the system, translated into the language of policy, economics, institutional trust, and what happens when the people medicine is supposed to serve stop believing in it.
“Matthew gives future physicians something medical education too often cannot: an unfiltered understanding of what healthcare looks and feels like from the other side of the system. His voice belongs in the education of the next generation of healthcare leaders.”
— Robert A. Winn Excellence in Clinical Trials Award Program
“Matthew challenges senior healthcare executives to think differently about the business they lead through the lens of the patient voice.”
— Point of Care Marketing Association
“Matthew turns decades of experience into insights that challenge clinicians, make them laugh, and change how they think about the care they deliver.”
– Medical College of Wisconsin
MORE CLIENT TESTIMONIALS
Matthew delivers one of the rare keynote experiences that resonates with clinicians, executives, and patient leaders at the same time. He translates lived experience into clear operational insight that healthcare organizations can actually use.
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—Walgreens
“Few voices combine Matthew’s decades of lived experience with his credibility, candor, and ability to connect across the cancer ecosystem."
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—American Brain Tumor Association
Matthew should be on everyone’s top ten celebrity healthcare speakers list. He is engaging, inspirational, personable, hysterical, and very, very real.”
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—Stonybrook Cancer Center
Matthew was bar none one of the best keynotes we've ever had. His storytelling and his music single-handedly mesmerized a theater full of 1,000 medical professionals. He is a must-have speaker at any event.”
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—Academy of Oncology Nurse Navigators
Matthew brought an entire audience of executives to tears, cheers, and back again at our Specialty Summer with his unique story, expertise, and comedic Gen X bent.”
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—Magellin RX Management
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A TRUSTED VOICE IN AMERICAN HEALTHCARE
Named The People's Voice in Healthcare by People Magazine. Called A Pioneer and Provocateur by The Atlantic. Author of the bestselling We The Patients: Understanding, Navigating, and Surviving America's Healthcare Nightmare (Wiley, 2026). Host of Out of Patients, healthcare's longest running independent podcast, 19 years running
He is not a motivational speaker with a diagnosis. He is the founder of Stupid Cancer, the architect of We The Patients, and the only speaker working today who sits at the intersection of patient lived experience, healthcare policy, media, and a national consumer protection movement that pharma, employers, and state legislators are all paying attention to.
His diverse lived experiences enrich his appearances, consistently delivering lasting impact and ensuring that audiences of all sizes leave inspired, motivated, and empowered to live their best lives.
The system is not broken. It is designed. And I have spent 30 years living in it, studying it, and building the movement to fix it.
SIGNATURE KEYNOTES
Drawing on his bestselling book We The Patients: Understanding, Navigating, and Surviving America's Healthcare Nightmare, Matthew examines how individual patient stories reveal systemic failure across modern care delivery. He connects denial, delay, cost exposure, and administrative burden to the real people living inside the data. Drawing on three decades of national advocacy work, he outlines how patients, employers, and healthcare leaders can move from fragmented voices to coordinated influence.
We The Patients: How 40 Million Americans Are Organizing to Hold the Healthcare System Accountable
Drawing on his bestselling book We The Patients: Understanding, Navigating, and Surviving America's Healthcare Nightmare, Matthew examines how individual patient stories reveal systemic failure across modern care delivery.Matthew examines how individual patient stories reveal systemic failure across modern care delivery. He connects denial, delay, cost exposure, and administrative burden to the real people living inside the data. Drawing on three decades of national advocacy work, he outlines how patients, employers, and healthcare leaders can move from fragmented voices to coordinated influence.
Audience takeaway
Leaders gain a clear understanding of where the system breaks down and what practical steps strengthen trust, transparency, and patient centered care.
Best for
Health systems
Health plans
Life sciences and pharma
Employer health leaders
Healthcare conferences
Trust: Fixing the Credibility Crisis in Healthcare Communication
Matthew examines how institutional language and compliance-shaped messaging continue to erode trust across modern care delivery. He connects jargon, empty empathy, and credibility gaps to the real patients, caregivers, and consumers forced to navigate the system every day. Drawing on his work across health systems, life sciences organizations, and national campaigns, he shows how leaders can move from performative communication to clear, human language that rebuilds trust.
Audience takeaway
Leaders gain a clear understanding of why institutional language erodes credibility and what practical steps restore clarity, trust, and meaningful engagement.
Best for
Healthcare marketing and communications teams
Life sciences and pharma organizations
Health systems and provider networks
Patient experience and consumer engagement leaders
Policy, advocacy, and public affairs organizations
Partial Client List
Book Matthew Zachary
Every room he walks into leaves differently than it arrived. If that is what your audience needs, let's talk.
WATCH MATTHEW LIVE
The closing keynote that brought 600 young adult cancer patients, survivors, and caregivers to their feet at CancerCon 2017. Part rally cry, part reckoning. This is what a patient movement sounds like when it finds its voice
What patient autonomy actually looks like when the stakes are your hands, your identity, and your life. A five-minute case study in trust, choice, and what the system gets wrong.
Live piano. Personal narrative. A challenge to every healthcare leader in the room to see the human being behind the data. This is the keynote that launched a national movement.