Healthcare Unfiltered

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Episode 18: Resurfacing Old Drugs: Lessons From "Chasing My Cure" Feb 16, 2021

Show notes

David Fajgenbaum (@DavidFajgenbaum), MD, MBA, MSc, assistant professor in the department of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as the associate director of patient impact for the Penn Orphan Disease Center, joins the show to talk about his experience writing and receiving feedback on the national bestseller “Chasing My Cure” as a survivor of Castleman disease – a commentary on how he turned hope into action and discovered an old drug that had never been researched in Castleman disease into a personal life-saver. Dr. Fajgenbaum then details the Cure Drug Repurposing Collaboratory, a public/private relationship between the FDA, the NIH, the Critical Path Institute, and academics like himself with the goal of identifying drugs with approved indications in one disease that have efficacy in other diseases. Additionally, he shares the work of the CORONA Project, the COVID-19 registry of new and repurposed agents that seeks to record any drug given to any patient with COVID-19 for the purposes of research and understanding the disease.View Dr. Fajgenbaum’s viral Tik Tok https://twitter.com/DavidFajgenbaum/status/1354478246826569728View Chadi’s book review of “Chasing My Cure” https://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2019/12/16/chasing-my-cure-a-book-review/

Episode 17: Debates and Controversies in Multiple Myeloma Feb 09, 2021

Show notes

Vincent Rajkumar, (@VincentRK), MD, hematologist at the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN), joins the show to guest host a debate between Sagar Lonial (@SagarLonialMD), MD, FACP, chief medical officer of Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, and Rafael Fonseca, (@Rfonsi1), MD, interim director of Mayo Clinic Cancer Center. These multiple myeloma “gurus” dive into imaging, smoldering disease, endpoints, maintenance, minimal residual disease, and so much more.

Episode 16: ASCO-GI Virtual Meeting Round-Up With Tanios Bekaii-Saab Feb 02, 2021

Show notes

Tanios S. Bekaii-Saab (@GIcancerDoc), MD, professor of medicine and director of the GI oncology program at the Mayo Clinic (Phoenix, AZ), joins the show to highlight the research with significant clinical application presented at the virtual ASCO-GI meeting, including KEYNOTE-177 and ATOMIC in colorectal cancer, atezolizumab plus bevacizumab for first-line HCC, a survival update in the POLO trial and utility of radiation for pancreatic cancer, PD-1 inhibitors for first-line and adjuvant treatment of gastric cancer, and much more.

Episode 15: What to Expect From Medicare Part D in 2021 Jan 26, 2021

Show notes

Stacie Dusetzina (@DusetzinaS), PhD, associate professor of health policy, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, joins the show to expound on the changes that have been made to Medicare Part D since its inception during the Bush administration, how Part D is failing the older population in need of expensive drugs, and the counterintuitive state of generic drug affordability for Part D recipients. Chadi and Stacie then discuss how changes in the presidential administration will impact Part D coverage for patients, including the Biden administration’s plan to put an out-of-pocket cap on Part D as well as the administration’s likelihood to pursue drug price negotiations.

Episode 14: Vaccine Distribution and Mandate Ethics With Alison Bateman-House Jan 19, 2021

Show notes

Chadi welcomes back Alison Bateman-House, (@ABatemanHouse), MPH, PhD, medical ethicist at New York University’s School of Medicine, to break down COVID-19 vaccine distribution and mandates. Why has vaccine distribution not been an efficient and effective process? Are the right people being prioritized in the vaccine pecking order? Should vaccine doses be immediately available to anybody and everybody to make strides toward herd immunity? Should a “first dose only” vaccine approach be adopted to mitigate the supply shortage? Is a government mandate of the vaccine at any level legal and ethical? How about at schools or hospital systems? The duo dives into trying to make sense of the burning COVID-19 vaccine questions of today.

Episode 13: Cardiology, Comedy, and COVID-19 with Rohin Francis Jan 12, 2021

Show notes

Rohin Francis (@MedCrisis), cardiologist in the UK, brings his expertise and unique sense of humor to the show to share how he’s combined comedy with medical education through his Twitter and YouTube presence, how he sifts through the vast expanse of COVID-19 research for data that is useful and legitimate, the apparent inability to have an open scientific debate on Twitter without being chastised or judged for your viewpoints, and so much more. Check out Dr. Francis’ videos at https://www.medlifecrisis.co.uk/.

Episode 12: Drug Approvals and Real-World Use: The Case of Selinexor in Multiple Myeloma Jan 05, 2021

Show notes

Aaron Goodman (@AaronGoodman33), MD, hematologist/oncologist, University of California San Diego, and Jatin Shah (@JatinShahMD), MD, executive vice president and chief medical officer, Karyopharm Therapeutics, join the show for a deep consideration of oncology drug approvals in the context of RCTs, RWE, surrogate endpoints, and outcomes. The larger discussion is framed around Karyopharm’s STORM study of selinexor in refractory multiple myeloma and whether the FDA had enough convincing data to approve the drug. Contention ensues around the findings of Karyopharm's BOSTON study and whether they should be used to justify selinexor as a second-line treatment.

Episode 11: Recapping 2020: A Year of COVID-19, Tradeoffs, and Censorship Dec 29, 2020

Show notes

In an enthralling yet informative roundtable discussion, Chadi hosts Saurabh Jha (@RogueRad), MD, radiologist and frequent guest of the show; Vinay Prasad (@VPrasadMDMPH), MD, MPH, hematologist/oncologist and former guest of the show; and Sally "Loyal Listener"(@barttels2), patient advocate, to breakdown 2020 like only they can. These titans of the MedTwitter world dissect and opine on lessons to be learned from COVID-19 (warts and all), the diminishing space for public discourse and healthy debate, the not-so-subtle censorship of provocative materials in academic journals due to social media backlash, cancel culture and the power of the Twitter mob, and so much more.

Episode 10: Advances in Multiple Myeloma From the ASH Annual Meeting Dec 22, 2020

Show notes

Rafael Fonseca (@Rfonsi1), MD, interim director of Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, shares with Chadi his picks for the most clinically applicable multiple myeloma studies coming out of the ASH virtual meeting, including notes on transplantation, frontline therapy, the “belle of the ball” bispecific antibodies, CAR-T therapies, and MRD monitoring.

Episode 9: Words Matter: The Patient Perspective of Language Used on Social Media Dec 15, 2020

Show notes

Laura Lee (@lauraelee), JD, a lawyer by training and journalist in North Carolina, brings her unique perspective to the show to discuss how language used on social media to describe the outcomes of clinical trials and the tolerance of therapies in a patient population can be damaging to patients on an individual level. She expresses some of her larger concerns in the way medical information is displayed and discussed online, including the tone that is used, how quality of life measures fall short in providing value for individual patients, and the lack of compassionate language used in studies that are poorly conducted.

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