Episodes

July 7, 2025

The Elastic Life of Gigi Robinson

Gigi Robinson grew up with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a disease that turns your joints into overcooked spaghetti. Instead of letting it sideline her, she built a career out of telling the truth about invisible illness. We talk a...
June 30, 2025

The Bronx Bleeds Blue: Vanessa Ghigliotty vs. Everyone

Episode Description: If you’ve ever wondered what happens when a Bronx-born pediatric nurse with stage 4 colon cancer survives, raises a kid, becomes a policy shark, and fights like hell for the ignored, meet Vanessa Ghigliot...
June 23, 2025

Ask Better Questions or Die Trying: Risa Arin

Risa Arin doesn’t just talk about health literacy. She built the damn platform. As founder and CEO of XpertPatient.com (yes, expert with no E), Risa’s taking a wrecking ball to how cancer education is delivered. A Cornell alu...
June 16, 2025

Pediatric Engineering for the Rest of Us: Dr. Jamie Wells

Dr. Jamie Wells is back—and this time, she brought a book. We cover everything from biomedical design screwups to the glorified billing software known as the EHR. Jamie's new book, A Clinical Lens on Pediatric Engineering , i...
June 9, 2025

Pinky Swear: Erica Campbell and The Wanted Mastectomy

Erica Campbell walked away from corporate life, took a hard left from the British Embassy, and found her calling writing checks for families nobody else sees. As Executive Director of Pinky Swear Foundation, she doesn’t waste...
June 2, 2025

Dr. Allyson Ocean Unfiltered: Science, Colons and Calling BS

Allyson with a Y. Ocean with two Ls. And zero chill when it comes to changing the face of cancer care. Dr. Allyson Ocean has been quietly—loudly—at the center of every major cancer breakthrough, nonprofit board, and science-b...
May 30, 2025

[BONUS] No One Told Me: COVID and Cancer

Sponsored by Invivyd, Inc. Nobody wants to hear about COVID-19 anymore. Especially not cancer patients. But if you’ve got a suppressed immune system thanks to chemo, radiation, stem cell transplants—or any of the other alphab...
May 26, 2025

Constellations and Cancer: A Storytelling Rebellion with Lisa Shufro

EPISODE DESCRIPTION Lisa Shufro is the storyteller’s storyteller. A musician turned innovation strategist, TEDMed curator, and unapologetic truth-teller, Lisa doesn’t just craft narratives—she engineers constellations out of ...
May 19, 2025

Dancing Through the Wreckage: Sally Wolf

What happens when you blend the soul of Mr. Rogers, the boldness of RuPaul, and just a pinch of Carrie Bradshaw? You get Sally Wolf. She’s a Harvard and Stanford powerhouse who ditched corporate media to help people actually ...
May 13, 2025

OCRA, Acronyms, and Audra: The Nonprofit Multiverse of Madness

Episode Description Audra Moran is the President and CEO of OCRA—Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance—which means she spends her days doing things most of us wouldn’t survive five minutes doing: merging nonprofits, leading nation...
May 6, 2025

CancerCare Turns 81. Christine Verini Has the Keys

Christine Verini is a pharmacist by training, a nonprofit CEO by title, and an unapologetic empath by design. She now leads CancerCare, one of the oldest, least-known, and most impactful organizations in the country that actu...
April 29, 2025

Jen Finkelstein: Wigs, Wegmans, and War Stories

Jennifer Finkelstein is not here for your pity, your pinkwashed slogans, or your performative awareness campaigns. She’s a 20-year young adult breast cancer survivor who turned trauma into a blueprint for action and built 5 Under 40, a no-BS nonprofit supporting women diagnosed with breast cancer u…
April 22, 2025

Kill Bill Meets Jane Fonda: Ilaria Montagnani

What happens when a black belt, sword-slinging fitness icon gets cancer—twice? She picks up a camera and dares the universe to test her again. Ilaria Montagnani is not your average anything. She’s been building strong bodies (and stronger minds) for over 30 years as the founder of Powerstrike. She…
April 15, 2025

Patient No More, Bullsh*t No More: Helene M Epstein

Helene M. Epstein is not here to make friends with the healthcare system. She's here to dismantle the bullshit, one catastrophic medical error at a time. An ad agency veteran turned patient safety firebrand, Helene’s journey from business development to writer to “badass queen of patient safety,” i…
April 8, 2025

Be Like Zach: Love, Loss, and Legacy

Jonathan and Jennifer Wall didn’t choose this path, but they’re walking it with purpose. After losing their son, Zach, they turned their grief into action, founding Zach’s Bridge, a lifeline for families navigating pediatric cancer. This episode isn’t about platitudes or silver linings—it’s about t…
April 1, 2025

Love Is Rare. Life Is Strange: My Best Friend Sarah

Sarah Armstrong—forever Sarah Oakden to me, no matter what the legal documents say—isn't just my best friend.  She's my first college friend, my musical theater soulmate, and the first person who truly saw me as an artist. She was there when I walked onto Binghamton’s campus, and she was there whe…
March 25, 2025

Food for Thought: Cancer, Calories, and Kicking Ass

Food for Thought: Cancer, Calories, and Kicking Ass Vanessa Rissetto is back, and she’s bringing the same energy, wit, and unapologetic realness that made her a fan favorite. Last time, we talked nutrition and the rise of Culina Health. This time, life threw her a plot twist—breast cancer. Because…
March 18, 2025

HPV, Anal Cancer, and the Fabulous Ms. Lillian Kreppel

EPISODE DESCRIPTION Lillian Kreppel doesn’t hold back. A seven-year anal cancer survivor and co-founder of the HPV Cancers Alliance, she has made it her mission to challenge stigma, fight misinformation, and push for better awareness of HPV-related cancers. In this episode, she sits down with Matt…
March 11, 2025

IMPOSSICANT! Grace Charrier’s No-Holds-Barred Cancer Rebellion

Grace Charrier—a powerhouse advocate, author, and cancer survivor—whose journey from a Stage 3 triple-negative breast cancer diagnosis to global advocacy is nothing short of extraordinary. Originally from Nigeria, Grace's life was upended when she was diagnosed following an unexpected health scare.…
March 4, 2025

The Art of Healthcare Fuckery

Buckle up, because Amy Gittelman is back, and this episode is one for the ages. A fellow SUNY Binghamton (yes, we still call it that) alum, Amy joins me for a hilarious and brutally honest deep dive into the absurdities of healthcare, insurance fuckery, and the general nonsense that plagues the sys…
Feb. 25, 2025

Unf*cking Healthcare with Deb Gordon

Welcome to another episode of Out of Patients, where we get real about the absolute circus that is the American healthcare system. If you've ever been trapped in a medical billing nightmare, gaslit by insurance reps, or just generally felt like healthcare is an elaborate game designed to screw you—…
Feb. 18, 2025

Cancer, AI, and the Meaning of Life

You know how some people enter your life with a knock, a bang, or maybe even a LinkedIn request? Not Rebecca Batterman, returning champion to Out of Patients, making her dramatic second appearance, Back in 2019, she karmically appeared like a plot twist in a film noir—unexpected, inevitable, and f…
Feb. 11, 2025

The Big Talk: Where Legacy Meets Spotlight

Tricia Brouk isn’t just a storyteller—she’s a story architect, crafting narratives that connect humanity. A former ballet dancer turned award-winning director, choreographer, and transformational speaker coach, Tricia brings her unique journey to the mic in this captivating conversation. From danci…
Feb. 4, 2025

Mad Science: AI, Mental Health, and the Future of Sanity

Get ready for a wild ride with Matt Lewis, the Tony Stark-meets-Jerry Seinfeld of the mental health AI world. As a multi-degreed polymath, Matt has been ahead of the curve on AI since MySpace was a thing. In this episode, we dive into everything from neuroethics and AI-powered mental health solutio…