Out of Patients EP440:Not Today, Jesus: Janine Durso
Janine Durso and I met in 1996 in a pharmaceutical ad agency when pagers still felt advanced and we thought 3 hours of sleep counted as self care. She built a 30 year career shaping healthcare messaging. In November 2024 her own brain ruptured during a Zoom coaching session. Five weeks in ICU. Two surgeries. Ten days relearning how to walk and count quarters. White Plains Hospital saved her life. Insurance rules still block her daughter from getting screened.
I wanted Janine here because she knows both sides of the curtain. She sold the language. Then she became the body on the table. I survived brain cancer at 21. We compare notes on fear you cannot see and systems that decide who gets scanned and who gets denied. She said Not today, Jesus while they wheeled her into surgery. That line alone earned the mic.
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Out of Patients is proudly the #1 independent healthcare podcast worldwide. New episodes every Tuesday. We’ve been turning medical trauma into momentum for 17 years. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Producer
Matthew Zachary invented healthcare podcasting before podcasting was a thing. In 2007, fresh off building Stupid Cancer, he grabbed a mic, launched The Stupid Cancer Show and started broadcasting patient stories on internet talk radio when everyone else was still writing blogs.
17 years and 400+ episodes later, Out of Patients is still the most unfiltered healthcare show anywhere.
Matthew doesn't do softball interviews. Brain cancer at 21 taught him that time is finite and bullshit is expensive. He gets guests to say things they'd never tell Congress. CEOs admit what's broken. Patients name what actually hurts. Scientists explain what industry doesn't want you to know. The conversations other shows won't touch because of sponsor concerns or political correctness.
What makes him different: He's been on both sides of the mic. Featured in documentaries, testified before Congress, keynoted hundreds of conferences.
But he's also been the guy puking from radiation, fighting insurance denials, and watching friends die from paperwork.
That dual perspective creates interviews you won't hear anywhere else. He knows which questions make power squirm because he's asked them from hospital beds and boardrooms both.
No pre-approved questions. No PR handlers. No seven-minute segments. Just real conversations with people brave enough to tell the truth about healthcare. After 17 years, Matthew's still the guy Mark Cuban reposts when he wants to understand what patients actually think. Read More
Out of Patients EP439: Mental Health, Wicked Problems and Dodgeball: Rebecca Benghiat
