Healthcare Unfiltered

In this follow-up episode, Dr. Ed Livingston—renowned surgeon, educator, researcher, and former deputy editor at JAMA—returns to discuss the latest developments in his ongoing legal battle. He reflects on what has transpired in the three months since his last appearance, offering insights into the discovery process and the legal details shaping the case as it heads toward a July 2026 trial date.Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/ Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on YouTube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

Dr. Douglas Flora, Executive Medical Director of Oncology Services at St. Elizabeth Healthcare Cancer Center and Editor-in-Chief of the journal AI in Precision Oncology, shares his pragmatic perspective on how AI is reshaping cancer care today and tomorrow. He discusses real-world applications such as FDA-approved pattern recognition tools in imaging and pathology, how AI may soon integrate with ctDNA to guide treatment decisions, and the clinical trials needed to advance this field. Dr. Flora also highlights how AI can enhance decision support in community oncology, expand care access in rural areas, and what his journal is doing to engage clinicians, researchers, and innovators in this rapidly evolving space.Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on YouTube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

Dr. Monique Diaz, Chief Medical Informatics Officer at CommonSpirit Health, unpacks the intersection of big data, clinical care, and healthcare innovation. She shares how informatics transforms resource allocation, patient engagement, and system efficiency—while offering a behind-the-scenes look at the daily responsibilities of a CMIO, from EMR coding to AI integration. Dr. Diaz also explores the evolving relationship between informatics and AI, and how future advancements hinge on ethical frameworks and responsible governance.Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on YouTube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

Dr. Sandy Scheinbaum, founder of the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy, joins the show to break down the principles of functional medicine—a patient-centered approach that integrates lifestyle, nutrition, psychology, and mind-body practices to address the root causes of illness. She shares how her academy trains coaches to guide individuals through sustainable behavior change, explains how mental and emotional states can directly impact physical symptoms, and discusses why functional medicine is especially critical in today’s world, where chronic stress, isolation, and lifestyle-related conditions are on the rise. Dr. Scheinbaum also highlights which patients benefit most from this approach and how functional medicine empowers people to take control of their health beyond traditional medical models.Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on YouTube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

Dr. Anthony DiGiorgio, a neurosurgeon at UCSF with a strong interest in healthcare policy, joins the show to unpack the complex and often misunderstood world of Medicaid. In a wide-ranging and nuanced discussion, he explores who qualifies for coverage, why most Medicaid spending goes to groups people don’t typically expect, and whether the system should be expanded or fundamentally reformed. Dr. DiGiorgio outlines his support for a robust safety net, emphasizing targeted subsidies over a government-run program, and offers his take on the proposed “Big Beautiful Bill” currently in Congress. Along the way, the conversation touches on broader healthcare issues including the 340B drug discount program, the Affordable Care Act, and the role of the free market in ensuring access to care.Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on YouTube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

Dr. Ed Livingston, renowned surgeon, educator, and researcher, who was a former deputy editor at JAMA, found himself out of a job after a JAMA podcast he hosted with Dr. Mitch Katz that discussed, among other items, structural racism as a contributor to the high mortality in minorities from COVID. This incident led to a series of lawsuits, some of which were highly publicized.Ed shares behind the scenes events, incidents, and what transpired in 2021, and how the AMA handled the situation. In this episode, Ed shares his background, career path, passion for education and medicine, and his disappointment at how everything was handled by the AMA.This is a rare discussion with some information being shared for the first time ever with listeners and viewers.The AMA declined the request to comment and provide their side of the story.Superior court ruling Livingston v AMA (AMA declares that physicians not entitled to due process, rules that the AMA committed libel and defamation): https://rulings.law/rulings/judge-curtis-a-kin/22stcv09441-2022-10-13.htmlUnanimous Appellate decision regarding libel and defamation by the AMA, Adds an additional finding of false light and invasion of privacy https://www4.courts.ca.gov/opinions/nonpub/B324638.PDFX post summarizing the Appellate decision (the court refers to the AMA as disingenuous): https://x.com/ehlJAMA/status/1852551140799291817Article summarizing the Appellate decision (““[d]rawing all reasonable inferences in his favor, Livingston has made a prima facie case that the gist or sting of the accusation in statement [that the podcast ‘denied the existence of structural racism in medicine,’ was not true.”): http://www.metnews.com/articles/2024/defamation_11042024.htmCourt orders Livingston to pay $110,000 to AMA despite his prevailing on the key allegations: https://rulings.law/rulings/judge-joseph-lipner/22stcv09441-2025-04-08.htmlArticle from the lawyer representing the AMA declaring that the process the AMA used against Livingston is abused “the widely abused anti-SLAPP statute.”: https://www.law.com/therecorder/2019/06/03/calif-high-court-ruling-good-news-for-defamation-plaintiffs/?slreturn=20250722074004X post with links to the various rulings: https://x.com/ehlJAMA/status/1913584194405425374Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on YouTube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

Ben Casavant, co-founder and CEO of Tasso, joins the show to discuss how he transformed the idea of patient-led blood collection into a reality through devices like Tasso+. He explains how Tasso’s self-collection kits—designed to be easy, virtually painless, and used anytime at home—solve the scalability issues of mobile phlebotomy while improving patient convenience, adherence, and access to care. Casavant also details the company’s growth journey, its FDA-cleared and CE-marked products, the broad customer base that includes healthcare providers, labs, insurers, and pharma companies, and how Tasso adds value not only through affordability, but by streamlining logistics, boosting compliance, and enabling seamless integration of patient-collected data into care systems.Read more about Tasso.https://www.tassoinc.com/ Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on YouTube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

Dr. Pallawi Torka of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center joins to share highlights from ASCO and EHA 2025 on the evolving landscape of B-cell lymphomas, including Hodgkin lymphoma, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), and follicular lymphoma. She offers in-depth insights on the STARGLO study and its recent ODAC review, the POLARGO trial, a rare T-cell leukemia (T-LGL) study, and new data supporting nivolumab-AVD in frontline Hodgkin lymphoma. Additional discussion includes the inMIND trial for follicular lymphoma, the growing role of ctDNA in managing DLBCL, advances in CAR-T cell therapy for CNS lymphoma, and how she is adapting treatment strategies based on favorable vs. unfavorable disease features.Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on YouTube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

Dr. Ben Derman of the University of Chicago Medicine joins the show to unpack major updates in multiple myeloma presented at ASCO and EHA 2025. He discusses the growing role of quadruple therapy across all patient populations and its implications for the future of autologous stem cell transplant, including insights from the MIDAS trial on MRD-guided transplant decisions. Additional highlights include MRD-negativity as a potential off-ramp for maintenance therapy, evolving data from frontline triplet vs. quadruplet studies, real-world referral trends, CARTITUDE-4 subgroup outcomes, and the expanding utility of bispecifics and trispecific antibodies, particularly for extramedullary disease.Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on YouTube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA

Joe DePinto, MBA, Head of Cell, Gene & Advanced Therapies at McKesson, joins the show to discuss InspiroGene, McKesson’s end-to-end platform built to address the complex delivery, coordination, and commercialization needs of cell and gene therapies. He breaks down how InspiroGene integrates logistics, specialty pharmacy, patient support services, and real-time data tracking to close critical gaps in the CGT ecosystem—especially around why many eligible patients are still not being identified, referred, or treated. He also explores the broader vision: enabling scalable access to these therapies as they move from rare diseases to larger populations, and what it will take—from providers, payers, and pharma—to meet that future.Check out Chadi’s website for all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes and other content. www.chadinabhan.com/Watch all Healthcare Unfiltered episodes on YouTube. www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiJPTpIJdIiukcq0UaMFsA