Chadi hosts recurring guest Priya Sampathkumar (@PSampathkumarMD), MD, infectious disease specialist and hospital epidemiologist, Mayo Clinic, to provide the infectious disease profile of Mokeypox – the latest virus that is spreading globally and making its rounds in the media over the past few weeks. Dr. Sampathkumar highlights the virus’ symptom profile, differentiates it from Smallpox, explains the origins of infection in the US, shares theories for why the infection rate is increasing worldw...
Jun 14, 2022•34 min
In this lively debate pertaining to all things multiple myeloma, Chadi hosts three guests with varying positions and viewpoints: Vincent Rajkumar, MD, Mayo Clinic; Manni Mohyuddin, MD, Huntsman Cancer Institute; and Cindy Chmielewski (@myelomateacher), patient research advocate. The group discuss the burning unanswered questions in multiple myeloma research and treatment – including problems related to clinical trial funding and design, control arms and “bad” trials, global disparities and drug ...
May 31, 2022•1 hr 31 min
Katie Coleman, a software engineer, joins the show to share her inspiring story of being diagnosed with a rare stage 4 kidney cancer at the end of 2020 and her journey through survivorship to the present day. Katie highlights the anxiety and guilt she experienced when moving through urgent care and the ER during the height of the pandemic, the struggles of not having family allowed in the room during her visits with oncologists or visits at home, the occurrences that led to eventual surgical rem...
May 24, 2022•56 min
Ralph Weichselbaum, MD, the Daniel K. Ludwig Distinguished Service Professor of Radiation and Cellular Oncology at the University of Chicago, is the guest of honor on today’s show focusing on radiation oncology as a discipline: the changes that have occurred over the years, the state of the field today, and how the field projects over the next few years. Dr. Weichselbaum highlights the malignancies that are poised for improvements in radiation outcomes in the coming years, how little attention i...
May 17, 2022•1 hr 10 min
Chadi hosts Lars Andersen, MD, MPH, PhD, DMSc, Aarhus University Hospital (Denmark), to discuss an interesting, relatively unknown concept he recently explored in JAMA Guide to Statistics and Methods. Dr. Andersen introduces us to “collider bias” in research design and statistical analysis. He utilizes a few common examples to illustrate how collider bias can affect our interpretation of data, how it differs from confounding and information bias, and rates the quality of COVID-19 research with r...
May 10, 2022•45 min
Amer Zeidan, MBBS (@Dr_AmerZeidan), MHS, associate professor of medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, joins the show to cover the latest exciting updates in the treatment landscapes for acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplasia. The duo discuss the etiology of both malignancies, the intricacies of defining and diagnosing MDS, how patients become classified as either lower-risk or higher-risk MDS and the survival rates of both, concerns and consequences with iron overload during blood tra...
May 03, 2022•1 hr 14 min
A familiar animated, jovial, Twitter-famed hematologist makes his return to the show to break down all of the most impactful hematology research of the past year, including what’s moving the needle in the CAR-T, DLBCL, non-Hodgkin lymphomas, Hodgkin lymphoma, AML, transplant, and multiple myeloma spaces. Who could the guest of honor be? Tune in to find out. Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/ Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered epi...
Apr 26, 2022•1 hr 9 min
Chadi’s guest Kashyap Patel (@KashyappatelMd), MD, president of the Community Oncology Alliance (COA), joins the show to give an update on the current initiatives and state of COA and community oncology as a whole. He chronicles his journey to becoming a medical oncologist at a small community center outside of Charlotte (SC) and how he became aware of the pain points of community oncology in the U.S. The conversation moved into the history and initial aim of COA to help community practices prep...
Apr 19, 2022•47 min
Samarth Kulkarni, PhD, CEO of CRISPR Therapeutics, joins the show to chronicle his journey to CRISPR Therapeutics and to break down the ins-and-outs of the technology. He begins by sharing the evolution of CRISPR as a “molecular barcode” and its first viable indication; how he “bets” the technology will have a major footprint in the cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease treatment landscape; shares strategies for shortening the potential time to market for some of the therapies; explains h...
Apr 12, 2022•1 hr
Recurring guest Vincent Rajkumar (@VincentRK), MD, Mayo Clinic, provides his input on the complexities of randomized controlled trials. The conversation covers the ability of fellowship programs to train fellows in the nuances of clinical trials, how funding is divvied up for different kinds of trials, how trial design is often influenced by expected time for the new drug to get to the market, when the risk is worth taking with the accelerated approval pathway, how to reconcile study designs whe...
Apr 05, 2022•1 hr 4 min
Chadi shifts gears this week to sit down with a renowned business leader: Samer Saab, founder and CEO of the experience management solution company Explorance. Samer sheds light on the challenges of starting and running a successful business, especially during a once-in-a-century pandemic, and the services Explorance offers. The Great Resignation, surveys given to healthcare workers, burnout, immigrant struggles, transparency and flexibility with employees, balancing personal lives with business...
Mar 29, 2022•1 hr 1 min
Rana McKay (@DrRanaMcKay), MD, genitourinary oncologist at UC San Diego, joins the show to recap the clinically relevant research presented at the ASCO GU meeting. She begins with a breakdown of the ARASENS, PROpel, and MAGNITUDE trials for prostate cancer; moves to TROPHY-U-01, EV-103, and ATLANTIS trials for urothelial cancer; hits on KEYNOTE-564 for kidney cancer; and names a few other studies along the way that could move the needle in genitourinary cancers in the near future. *Plus – a surp...
Mar 22, 2022•1 hr 8 min
Continuing the ketogenic discussion, Chadi hosts Nick Norwitz (@nicknorwitz), PhD, Harvard Medical School, and welcomes back Dave Feldman (@DaveKeto), senior software engineer and entrepreneur, to discuss their recently authored paper “Elevated LDL Cholesterol with a Carbohydrate-Restricted Diet: Evidence for a ‘Lean Mass Hyper-Responder’ Phenotype.” The trio discuss the inspiration for the paper, the methodology and survey questions, results and take-home messages, and the broad range of reacti...
Mar 15, 2022•1 hr 3 min
Sanam Loghavi (@sanamloghavi), MD, hematopathologist and molecular pathologist at the University of Texas MD Anderson Center, provides a clear picture of pathology as a specialty in this informative episode. Dr. Loghavi argues that medical school curriculum falls short in including pathology as a legitimate specialty for students to pursue, credits and discredits the preconceived notions about what pathology is all about, shares what differentiates good pathologists and exceptional pathologists,...
Mar 08, 2022•1 hr 1 min
Chadi hosts a very renowned, high profile guest – one of the leading vaccine experts in the world and the man co-credited with developing the rotavirus vaccine: Paul Offit (@DrPaulOffit), MD, Director of the Vaccine Education Center and Professor of Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr. Offit tackles the hard-hitting questions on everyone’s minds: whether public health policy decisions should be made based on randomized controlled trials during a pandemic, what went into the FDA’s...
Mar 01, 2022•56 min
Tara Haella (@tarahaelle), independent science/health journalist, joins the show to discuss her reporting on vaccine hesitancy long before the pandemic (the “trenches of the mommy wars”), how this previous work aligns with today’s COVID vaccine hesitancy, and how cognitive bias plays a substantial part in our individual feelings toward vaccines. Tara explains the longstanding history of vaccine hesitancy, how she came to initially distrust the CDC, how vaccine hesitancy was likely exacerbated by...
Feb 22, 2022•1 hr 12 min
Chris Arnade (@Chris_arnade), long-time writer and author of “Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America,” joins the show to discuss his recent experience walking America and how his views on politics and the COVID-19 response have changed as a result. Chris shares his unique upbringing and professional background, ways in which he satisfied his early interest in long walks and what he made of these walks, and how this interest developed into touring the U.S. and photographing the people he en...
Feb 15, 2022•1 hr 18 min
Chadi hosts a truly inspiring pediatrician, author, philanthropist, humanitarian, and self-described “healer”: Noha Baz. Dr. Baz opens up about her unique childhood beginning in France and moving to Lebanon, some harrowing stories about young patients being refused care because of lack of money to pay for treatment, her eventual founding of “Les Petits Soleils” in 1997 to provide medical care for children living in Lebanon not benefiting from health coverage, maintaining her focus despite politi...
Feb 08, 2022•1 hr 28 min
Chadi welcomes two experienced medical writers, Marielle Fares and Tom Lang, to explain what “medical writing” entails and who the intended audience is, the difference between regulatory and medical education writing as well as patient education and scientific publications, how medical projects come in and what types of instructions and materials medical writers are given, the ins-and-outs of the revision process, what it means when medical writers are listed in the acknowledgments of published ...
Feb 01, 2022•1 hr 3 min
Naveen Pemmaraju (@doctorpemm), MD, department of leukemia, University of Texas MD Anderson Center, joins the show to discuss how researchers approach the investigation of rare diseases. Chadi and Dr. Pemmaraju break down the latter’s distinguished work in blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm (BPDCN)—a rare, aggressive hematologic cancer—as well as other rare and orphan diseases. Context for the rare and orphan disease drug development pathway, granular classification for malignancies (p...
Jan 25, 2022•1 hr
Chadi welcomes back Bishal Gyawali (@oncology_bg), MD, PhD, Queen’s University Cancer Research Institute (Canada), to the show to discuss the history of the FDA’s accelerated approval regulatory pathway, how it is sometimes abused, how low-level surrogate endpoints are being used for approval, what happens (and what should happen) when confirmatory trials do not confirm clinical benefit for drugs approved through this pathway, how conflicts of interest may impact some regulatory decisions, and s...
Jan 18, 2022•58 min
Continuing his ASH Annual Meeting coverage, Chadi invites Matt Maurer (@MaurerStats), MS, principal biostatistician, Mayo Clinic, and Alan Skarbnik (@ASkarbnik), MD, director of the lymphoma and CLL program, Novant Health (Charlotte, NC), to review the three prominent CAR-T studies in relapsed/refractory DLBCL presented at the meeting. Why were the results divergent and what does this mean for CAR-T’s utility in this setting? The trio break down the ins-and-outs of the trials – both from a stati...
Jan 11, 2022•1 hr 6 min
Chadi invites a trio of lymphoma experts to weigh the importance of the POLARIX trial – which was presented at the ASH Annual Meeting and looked at frontline therapy for patients with DLBCL. Matthew Matasar, MD, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, co-authored publication of the POLARIX study “Polatuzumab Vedotin in Previously Untreated Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma” in the New England Journal of Medicine and defends the its results with guests Liz Brem, MD, UC Irvine, and Daniel Landsburg, M...
Jan 04, 2022•59 min
David Zweig (@davidzweig), published author and science journalist based in New York, joins the show to tackle one specific topic pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic: mask mandates for children in schools. David’s article “The CDC’s Flawed Case for Wearing Masks in School” was published in The Atlantic early this month and spotlights the “very shaky science” propped up by the CDC that has compelled many schools throughout the US to institute mask mandates for their students. Chadi and David anal...
Dec 28, 2021•1 hr 8 min
Emily Landon, MD, Executive Medical Director, Infection Prevention and Control, University of Chicago, makes her long-awaited return to the show to provide an update on the status of COVID-19 in the US. Chadi and Dr. Landon discuss the proportion of people in America that have gotten their vaccine and booster, how Omicron has come along so quickly as an “escape” variant, how effective the vaccines are against contracting and fighting Omicron, whether vaccine mandates for healthcare workers are j...
Dec 21, 2021•1 hr 15 min
Samer Al Hadidi (@HadidiSamer), MD, assistant professor in the multiple myeloma program, University of Arkansas, shares his own human experience of receiving an unfortunate diagnosis as an immigrant going through residency and through fellowship, all while dealing with the loss of a close relative. Dr. Al Hadidi recounts the dilemma he had as an immigrant in the US on a visa and deciding whether to prioritize his health or his medical training, the way things escalated while progressing through ...
Dec 14, 2021•47 min
To debate the utility and appropriateness of real-world evidence against clinical trials for treating patients with hematologic malignancies, Chadi welcomes back Aaron Goodman (@AaronGoodman33), MD, hematologist, University of California San Diego, and Alan Skarbnik (@ASkarbnik), MD, director of the lymphoma and CLL program, Novant Health (Charlotte, NC), as well as invites first-time guest Liz Brem (@DrLizBrem), MD, assistant clinical professor of hematology, UC Irvine. Can RCT designers ever e...
Dec 07, 2021•1 hr 20 min
Chadi hosts Graham Collins (@graham74GC), MBBS, MA, MRCP, FRCPath, DPhil, hematology consultant in the UK, for a broad discussion aimed to simplify an often complicated disease: Hodgkin lymphoma. The duo talk about early-stage disease categorizing, treatment considerations for each stage, reasonable clinical trial endpoints of practice-changing potential, adverse effects resulting from intensive treatments, notable clinical trials and novel treatment approaches, and programs for young adult surv...
Nov 30, 2021•59 min
Chadi re-invites Dave Feldman (@DaveKeto), senior software engineer and entrepreneur, and Ethan Weiss (@ethanjweiss), MD, cardiologist at UC San Francisco, to rehash a Twitter argument on secondary prevention for heart attacks for patients with high LDL. Should patients receive statins or should they not? What does the data show and where is the controversy, if any? How does diet play a role? What about the infamous KETO diet? The guests discuss a couple of realistic hypothetical scenarios with ...
Nov 23, 2021•1 hr 40 min
Ramaswamy Govindan, MD, Anheuser Busch Endowed Chair in Medical Oncology, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, provides the condensed oral history of thoracic oncology – dating from the late 1990s to the present day. Chadi and Dr. Govindan discuss how stage III chemoradiation and PET scans were new strategies before the turn of the century, the introduction of gefitinib as a pivotal moment in the treatment paradigm, the doors opening for EGFR inhibitors, the discovery of ALK as...
Nov 16, 2021•1 hr
