Marion Mass, MD, practicing pediatrician and co-founder of Practicing Physicians of America, joins the show to share her unique ideas about how to reduce healthcare costs while simultaneously improving access to care. She describes her “sentinel moment” in which she realized that physicians are no longer the primary medical advocates for their patients and how this led her to founding a grassroots physician organization dedicated to patient advocacy. The conversation takes interesting turns into hospital fines for price transparency, patient copays and premiums, Medicare, direct primary care, pharmacy benefit managers, and so much more.
Read the Practicing Physicians of America’s position paper on their discussed legislative requests here.
Dr. Simrit Parmar, founder of Cellenkos, joins the show to discuss her journey from the lab to the biotech startup world, detailing the inspiration behind launching her company, the challenges of securing funding, and the resilience required to overcome rejections. She shares insights into Cellenkos’ lead product, its progress toward market approval, and the rigorous
Carol Rausch—a healthcare professional, cancer researcher, and former patient with lymphoma—shares how her journey from researcher to patient transformed her understanding of medical language. She discusses the impact of word choice on patients, why certain battle and war metaphors can be harmful, and how language used in clinical settings differs from what resonates with those
Drs. David Braun and Toni Choueiri join to discuss a groundbreaking Nature study on a personalized neoantigen vaccine for adjuvant renal cell carcinoma. They explore the inspiration behind the trial, how the vaccine was developed and administered, and its safety profile. The conversation also covers patient outcomes after 3-4 years, including immune responses and disease
