Out of Patients EP415: Sorry, Your Awareness Campaign is Showing
Katie Henry once handed out 500 vibrators at my cancer conference and accidentally rewrote the national conversation on sex after breast cancer. That’s not a metaphor. That’s a Tuesday in Katie Henry world.
She’s a nonprofit bruiser turned pharma insider, fluent in the language of boardrooms and band camp. She worked her way up from J.Crew retail shifts and bank teller jobs to managing national grants, fixing broken trial designs, and making sure patients don’t get erased in the strategy decks.
I brought Katie on Out of Patients because she’s the kind of voice that cuts through the performance. She’s smart without the ego, funny without the fluff, and emotionally grounded in the actual human toll of our system’s failures.
We talk shop, we talk family, we talk trombones and trauma and why her alter ego “Didi” is the most terrifying grandparent in America. She calls herself a learner. I call her a field general disguised as a marimba nerd.
This episode is everything I want this show to be: irreverent, disarming, deeply true, and free from the marketing machine. Katie reminded me that outrage is only useful if you can convert it into action.
Listen. Share. Argue. Laugh. Then do something about the system.
Matthew Zachary
Producer
Matthew Zachary never planned on becoming a healthcare advocate. At 21, while training to be a concert pianist, he was diagnosed with brain cancer and told he might never play again. That was nearly thirty years ago. Spoiler alert - he survived! Instead of returning to the recital hall, he set out to change the healthcare system that nearly broke him.
In 2007, Matthew founded Stupid Cancer, a groundbreaking nonprofit that gave young adults with cancer something they’d never had before: a voice, a community, and the freedom to be angry. Through national conferences and online platforms, it helped millions of patients and families find connection and purpose in the face of isolation.
That same year, he launched The Stupid Cancer Show, the first talk radio program to cover the patient experience with the urgency of breaking news. It later evolved into Out of Patients, his award-winning podcast known for its honest conversations and unapologetic tone. His media work also includes the acclaimed documentary The Cancer Mavericks, which tells the story of the rebel patients who helped transform modern oncology.
Today, Matthew leads Matthew Zachary Worldwide, a media and consulting company that helps brands and organizations better understand the real needs of patients and how to co-create solutions with them, not just for them. His upcoming book, We the Patients: A Field Guide to Surviving American Healthcare (Wiley, June 2026), draws on three decades of lived experience and advocacy to help readers navigate and challenge the U.S. healthcare system.
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Out of Patients EP413: The Uncensored, Unapologetic Olivia Battinelli
