Podcasters Roundtable: Samira Daswani, Host of The Patient from Hell
Live from Stage 4 | Episode # 6 | 11/11/2025 | Podcasters Roundtable
Listen to full episode :
Guests
Samira Daswani
An impact-driven entrepreneur and healthcare design leader, best known as the founder and CEO of Manta Cares, a digital health company that provides practical support tools for cancer survivors and caregivers. She is also the host of the podcast Patient from Hell, which focuses on patient advocacy.
Quick Summary
In this episode, hosts Victoria and Abigail sit down with Samira Daswani, creator of "The Patient From Hell" podcast, for a candid and insightful conversation about patient advocacy, storytelling, and the evolving landscape of cancer care. Samira shares her personal journey from reluctant podcast guest to passionate host, highlighting the importance of amplifying patient voices and democratizing information for those navigating cancer diagnoses—especially in communities where open discussion is rare.
The discussion delves into the challenges of reaching diverse audiences, the power of authentic, minimally edited conversations, and the need for both scientific and personal perspectives in patient-centered content. The trio reflects on the shifting attitudes in cancer communities, the critical role of support networks, and the ongoing mission to educate and empower patients worldwide. The episode wraps up with ideas for future collaborations and a shared commitment to making a meaningful impact through storytelling and advocacy.
Takeaways
The power of storytelling: Sharing patient stories—especially those that challenge the system—can educate, empower, and connect people facing cancer, and help break cultural taboos around discussing illness.
Patient advocacy is essential: Advocates like Samira Daswani play a crucial role in raising awareness, supporting patients, and driving change in healthcare, especially for those who don’t fit the “standard” patient profile.
Community and support networks matter: Building a strong support system, both online and offline, is vital for patients and caregivers navigating cancer.
Every cancer experience is unique: There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Personalized care and self-advocacy are necessary, as what works for one person may not work for another.
The importance of democratizing information: Making scientific advances and resources accessible to all patients—regardless of location or background—can improve outcomes and empower individuals.
The value of open, authentic conversations: Both scientific deep-dives and informal, unfiltered discussions among patients and clinicians are valuable. Authenticity and honesty help foster understanding and community.
The evolving landscape of cancer care: Advances in targeted therapies and next-generation sequencing are changing prognoses, but not all patients have equal access to these innovations.
The need for ongoing advocacy—for everyone: Even advocates and caregivers need support. Programs that pair patients with navigators or mentors can make a difference.
The role of social media and community outreach: Reaching patients where they are—through podcasts, social media, and support groups—helps spread vital information and build community.
Always consult healthcare professionals: While shared stories and advice are helpful, medical decisions should always be made in consultation with qualified providers.
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[00:02:28]
Victoria: We are all friends here and we want to just talk about podcasting as Abigail said before we started, that we're new kids on the block
and you are an experienced old timer. So we want to pick your brain and we want to learn as much as we can and steal as much as we can from you.
Samira: Steal between manipulation, snooping, and stealing Victoria.
Victoria: Samira is totally in awe of my language. And let me tell you, I was born in the country
that no longer exists, Soviet Union, now it's Russia. So it's not surprising that my language is full of interesting words. , So speaking of interesting words , you have the most amazing title for your podcast. We struggled so much to come up with the title of our podcast, but yours is just beyond great.
Tell us [00:03:28] about it a little bit.
Samira: I'm happy to. So the podcast is called The Patient From Hell.
Victoria: Is that about all of us?
Samira: Yes, I definitely subscribe. I know Abigail, for sure, subscribes Victoria, just in the, like, you know, half an hour that I've gotten to know you. Yes. I suspect that you are part of the pretty direct
Victoria: Part of the group that's known as patients from Hell.
Yes.
Samira: So I can tell you why I named it, the first few episodes actually, I didn't go out trying to start a podcast. I got diagnosed in 2020 early stage breast cancer. I was very, very quiet about it actually. I wasn't really in the, I don't know, talk about my Story club. A friend of mine arm twists me into recording my episode.
It was actually on his podcast and he was like, look, I'm gonna publish this on my podcast, which has got nothing to do with cancer and we should just start one [00:04:28] under Manta. And I was like, ah, this is the dumbest idea in the world. Why would we do this? I was very, very reluctant.
So if you go back and listen to episode number one, it's pretty junky. And it's him interviewing me. And it was the very first time that I was talking about this publicly. And what happened was, we publish episode one, and we look at the analytics
Victoria: and what we start seeing is that women in their sixties are listening. It was very unusual because in podcast land, even today, your average listener about 40% or so US, is in their like thirties, forties. So you're looking at a very , young demographic. . I have generated like 5 million questions in my head just from listening to you for two minutes.
I am ready.
Go on, continue, please.
Samira: This is just episode one, and then what happens is , we get to several listeners and [00:05:28] I started getting inbound messages from women and in all honesty I was very surprised.
I didn't expect it and the messages I got said some version of, you know, it's really hard to talk about cancer in any community. And especially in communities, Victoria, I grew up in India, so especially in communities like India where talking about cancer is not the norm, like in the US we've kind of normalized it at least breast cancer to some extent.
Right. It's not perfect, but over the last couple of decades, we've made it part of the public discourse in countries like India, that's not necessarily true. So if you are a patient or a survivor getting treated or diagnosed for cancer in a country like India, it's really hard to talk about it.
Victoria: I was born in the same kind of cultural desert where people not only didn't talk about cancer, patients were not even told that they had cancer.
Samira: Oh yeah, that's true in India too, [00:06:28] especially if you're older.
Victoria: Yeah.
Samira: My granddad got diagnosed with prostate cancer, we didn't tell him. I remember my dad not telling him . So I'm with you. I'm right there with you.
So what happened was, because we saw this response, I felt as I had a moral obligation to doing more , except I find myself, Victoria, like you having more questions than wanting to talk about my story. So I was like, we have to flip this. This can't be about me.
This has to be about other people. So I became the host of it, so episode four onwards i've been hosting it. And for me, honestly, it's a way of getting other people to share their stories because I find so much power in not just patients and survivors telling their stories, but understanding how a clinician thinks,
understanding how a guideline body thinks, understanding how a pharma company thinks, understanding how insurance thinks, and cancer is so complicated that making sure that we democratize information coming directly from the source is the ethos of goal, I guess. Anyway, all this to say that [00:07:28] early in my personal experience as a patient and I ended up reading a book called The Patient From Hell, and it's written by a Stanford professor.
He ends up dying from not cancer, but he got diagnosed with a rare cancer and he writes this book and the goal of the book is to highlight the fact that in medicine broadly and definitely in cancer we treat patients in cohorts, right? , You get diagnosed, you get put in a bucket, you get diagnosed MBC, you're in the MBC bucket, you get diagnosed early stage hormone positive,
you're in that bucket. Now, if you are someone who defies that bucket in any dimension,
the system doesn't know what to do with you. The system's like, okay, you are too young , guidelines won't apply. Okay, what does that mean? And then the system is not set up to really deliver what I think in language we call personalized medicine.
And what ends up happening is, the burden then falls on you as a patient. So you have to advocate for yourself. So anyway, I read this book early in my [00:08:28] experience as a patient and therefore ended up driving the system a little crazy, tiny
bit nuts. Uh,
and here we are many years later with a podcast title.
Abigail: I have a couple of questions.
Yes, please.
Can I ask a couple of questions, please. Oh, please. So Samira, I want you to think about who is your favorite guest, and it doesn't have to be me, I know I was on the podcast, but legitimately,
who is your favorite guest, like your favorite conversation?
Samira: It's really hard because it's really hard. That's a hard question for me. I think I have maybe four. Okay. Sorry. The first is Katie Coleman. , She and I, our very first episode, started kind of like this, where we're just chatting and we end up talking about mortality.
And I think that's such a hard topic to talk about with someone, especially when you know it's being published externally. Yeah. And I found that with her in particular, it was just very easy [00:09:28] for us to get into the gnarly side of it, like, how do friendships change, how do you think of end of life?
How do you think of death? How do you think of advanced directives? I'm like, but the emotional side of it, which is I think, hard. Anyway, so that was one of my favorites for sure. You and Janice. I put you on the same bucket because I think we recorded within weeks of each other. And I think that's how I met you.
Yep. Janice introduced us. Yep.
Yeah. And that was amazing to me because now I'm just listing my friends for what it's worth, by the way, but I feel this is a way of making friends and, I think it's hard to meet people who are willing to, I don't know, talk truth to power, for lack of a better way to phrase it, where
there is a lot of power in the system that is not the patients. Yes. And there aren't that many of us who push back on the system. I'm talking system broadly. I don't just mean the clinician or the care team. And you of course, are one of them and Janice is of course one of them. And it just styles are different, but you guys have at least for me, become pillars of the cancer [00:10:28] community.
The third for me is Dr. Sarah Delaney.
Victoria: , By the way, I listened to that episode this morning. A great episode.
Samira: Yep. It's
Victoria: a great episode.
Samira: She is such an articulate speaker. Oh my God. She, her analogies are so poignant. The way she thinks about TNBC and how it's shifting.
If you think about TNBC and the HER2 space and how those two spaces are growing, I found that episode to be one where I walked away understanding kind of the macro decade level shift that's happening in that space, which I thought was pretty cool. And then the fourth for me is an episode we did a long time back on tumor board.
That was like year one, and I don't think it's, it's not one of our most popular episodes. I
Victoria: was gonna say, I, how many downloads did you get on that one?
Samira: It was not a top 10 for us.
Victoria: Yeah.
Samira: I walked away from that episode having more [00:11:28] empathy for clinicians, which I didn't expect to have because my stance on tumor boards is, it's my tumor, my story, I should be part of it.
It's just my personal stance on it. It's like, why in the world are you talking about me without me in the room? That's just nuts. I want to hear the debate, I want to hear the like opinions. Anyway, so the perspective that that guest had, was just so dramatically different than I had anticipated, and I walked away understanding that clinicians, when they're treating patients who are early stage and curative setting, and when they're treating metastatic patients come to it with a fairly different mindset.
And the emotional burden on them is different, which I never anticipated, I never thought that a clinician would get pushback. It's not just emotional pushback, but it's almost that the clinician is at fault because the data is so strong.
I didn't expect that. It's [00:12:28] almost a little bit of furor in there. And that's what almost drives a clinician to be like, no, no, no. We gotta follow the guidelines. We have to follow this. I never understood that, whereas in the metastatic space, it's a little bit more loose, for lack of a better word.
There's a little bit more room to allow the patient to influence the decision. I say this only 'cause that was an episode that I think for me was a foundational shift in the way I think about cancer care.
Victoria: I have a lot of questions about this, as well.
It's true that probably it's stringent in the early stage setting, but we have also found that in the metastatic setting, depending on the institution, it could be very, very stringent. So, yeah as you said, and now that they're talking about curative intent for metastatic patients, the whole landscape is changing.
Abigail: It really is. Yeah. Well, you see the people newly diagnosed coming in with an entirely different script, an entirely different language that they're hearing from their providers, [00:13:28] which can be a little jarring for some of us who have been in this space for a little while. But one of the things I think about, Samira, in this space, is someone like you who is done with your cancer treatment, that you have the option different maybe from some of us who are in constant treatment to say, cancer is closed.
That chapter of my life is done and I've moved on. But what is it that keeps you connected, coming back and wanting to stay engaged with the cancer community?
I think I just
Samira: got really upset when I was going through treatment. I didn't get upset that I got cancer. It never actually bothered me for some reason.
I was just like, okay, all right, pick the wrong card. In the world of statistics, I just happened to fall into the not common one. So that never bothered me. The thing that bothered me was I have a lot of privilege, i'm educated, I have access to care, i'm on a PPO plan and my family showed up.
Like I had a lot of support. So there's a lot of privilege and I think the thing that got under my [00:14:28] skin was like, even with all that privilege, it was really hard. And it was hard in ways. It's not just like, chemo being hard is okay. All right. Chemo is hard. That's just true, you can change that a little bit, but you can't really change that.
But the system showing up, the way the system shows up is for me, not acceptable. And I have worked in healthcare my entire career before I got diagnosed. I had worked in oncology two times before I got diagnosed. And I was like, we don't really have, and I'm not talking about the advocacy space,
but if you look at the industry side of it, there really isn't a business organization that is truly shifting the industry to be patient first, that doesn't exist today. And because I have worked on the business side of healthcare and the business side of oncology, I almost feel like I have a moral obligation a little bit. And I have access to resources in a way that sometimes I don't think we typically do, like [00:15:28] I'm in San Francisco, there is an ecosystem here. And for me, that's what keeps me going.
And then I was telling Victoria, we're testing this advocate program on our side, which is like, we will pair you with a clinician or a nurse or someone who can support you outside of your care team just to help educate you. So we've been test driving that.
I was on a call yesterday with an MBC patient.
She finds that program, signs up and happens to get paired with me. And she says I got diagnosed seven years ago and have been in treatment for a long time and I, set up a 501(c)3 and have been supporting patients and, on these Zoom support groups
and someone asks her, who advocates for you? And her response is, I realized that I didn't have an advocate. And this is someone who I would argue is in our space, showing up for others, at least trying to, and honestly, it really got me. I was like, oh shit. All this to say that for me there's an intellectual [00:16:28] privilege, moral obligation, people are going through really shitty parts of their lives, and if we can do something or make it easier, how could I not?
Victoria: Abigail, what about you? actually, I've never asked you this question. Why did you show up?
Abigail: I think a lot of it is around purpose because those of us who have been in helping professions, as a lawyer, I was helping people solve problems,
I mean, really all legal advice boils down to having a guide through the legal process. And when I had to close my firm because of my diagnosis and I realized there were a lot of hours between drop off and pickup, right? Like, you know, there's a lot of hours you're just sitting around , and I needed to fill that time because I think those of us who become workaholics probably do so very naturally, organically, and I have to fill that void or I have to fill that part of my life.
So for me it's a lot about purpose and it's a lot about feeling [00:17:28] useful, which I know is very Midwestern, if you're not useful, there's something wrong. Uh, so yes, some of that is I think, the way that we're raised, the values that we absorb.
But the thing that I'm always surprised by, when I talk to people who are outside of dealing directly with patients is how sad they think it is. And it is, it is sad that we lose, what, 117 people a day average in the United States. So that means that we lose so many people, but the relationships are still worth it.
Samira: Oh, true. So true.
Victoria: But it's a hard decision. I don't tend to think very carefully about what I do. I just go with it. But it does take its toll. It does, losing people , it's one of the hardest things we have to deal with.
Abigail: Yeah.
And learning how to incorporate dealing with grief [00:18:28] in our day today I think can be really difficult. But Samira said something that maybe is a good topic to think about too, which is who advocates for the advocates. And I have struggled over the years that many of the patient navigation programs or the nurse navigation programs
are not available to people with metastatic breast cancer. And that the one of the initial places I was treated when I said, Hey, I need somebody to help me navigate. Like that is what they do. And they said, look, this is for people in active treatment.
So what I advocated for in that program and what eventually ended up happening was that metastatic patients could get that patient navigator in that time period when they experienced progression and have to go into planning out another set of appointments because every line of treatment is a little different that they forgot that sometimes that is chemo,
'cause they're thinking oral targeted [00:19:28] therapy. You don't need the same kind of navigation as you do if you have to plan out coming in every three weeks and things like that. Which totally makes sense, but sometimes it is chemo, sometimes it is an ADC
Victoria: It's only the lucky group that actually doesn't get to have an infusion, yeah. As an ER positive, HER2 negative person, you start with the pill. But us, the HER2 people, we start with chemo and we're lucky when we stop, but so many do not.
Abigail: That's the cohort bucket right there, they're like, oh
Victoria: yeah,
some MBC people don't have to be on chemo . So, Samira, I have a question for you too as a follow up. Abigail asked you about your favorite guest. And of course you never had me as a guest, so that's why
Oh, we shoulda have you as a guest.
It's absolutely not a fair question. But, kind of related to that, , what are your favorite topics? What actually , makes your heart swell when you think [00:20:28] about what you're gonna talk about next?
Samira: Oh, such a good question. , You guys are full of great questions, you guys. Dang.
So i, I'm a nerd. I love having oncologist on the show.
Victoria: There we go. There we go. Yes.
Samira: I absolutely love it.
It just, it's so much fun for me. the real problem is when I nerd out, I'm like, oh shit, no one's gonna like this. One of my favorite moments was we did a S-A-B-C-S recap from last year, and Dr. Blaney was the guest on the show.
So we do this recap and Dr. Blaney is a nerd through and through. So this is me talking to someone I know really well and we are down the rabbit hole on mechanism of action of a bispecific versus a, you know, ADC. And like my dad listens to the show and he calls me and he goes, that was very fun,
it was great to hear you so happy. And I didn't understand a word of the show and I was like, oh my God. [00:21:28] So to answer your question, there are shows that fill my heart, which is science and mechanisms of action. And then there are shows that I think resonate with people. Yeah. And the shows that resonate are usually, I would say 50 50
, a lot of patients and survivor shows for us do really well, typically. And then there are shows like Dr. Sara Tolaney and some clinicians who are very good about explaining science in ways that make sense.
Victoria: Yep. Yeah. And those
Samira: shows do very well, those episodes.
Victoria: Yeah. Yeah.
Stephanie Graff, , Erica Hamilton. Yes. , Those are amazing. Dr. Hope Rugo. , I've had her on my old podcast a few times, and I love her. I mean, , I can listen to her forever, it's just fascinating stuff.
And we, with you, I'm, I'm science all the way, but luckily for me, Abigail likes the other side of our experience.
Abigail: Yes, those quality of life [00:22:28] considerations can also be helpful for people. I do think that sometimes there are listeners, there are people who just need to know that they can live with something, right?
And so , hitting that audience, being able to empower the people who want all the scientific stuff, but then also make sure people know they're not alone. It's a good combination.
Samira: And actually what you just said, Abigail, the thing that came to my mind is not so much in the MBC space, more in the lung space.
Really?
Because in lung cancer, there's been such a shift in the last four or five years. It's a little scary. Like we've gone from an overall survival of nine months to 10 plus years.
You're talking like huge, huge, dramatic shift. It's a huge change.
But again,
Victoria: not, not for every subtype probably, right?
No, definitely not.
Same as in breast cancer.
Samira: Similar ish , The way you cohort is very different because in the lung space, a shift has happened primarily for targeted treatments and I say that because, we're [00:23:28] working in lung and breast, so in the lung community, there is such an existential, I will die from this diagnosis in a way that I don't see in MBC anymore.
I just don't see it. The shift has happened, but not everybody has caught up. You see the narrative shift and shift and shift and shift and shift, and it's shifting very quickly.
So if you are getting treated in a community setting where you may not have a thoracic oncologist who has kept up to date, that diagnosis moment is effectively you will die.
The reality is, if you did NGS and you happen to have a mutation, that's just not true.
You are looking , maybe not full curative setting, but you're looking at massive, massive shift.
Anyway, all this to say that the thing that I really enjoy about having a podcast is we get to hear that. And you get to hear both sides. You [00:24:28] get to hear the story of the patient survivor who's like, I had no idea that I was even eligible for targeted therapeutic.
And then you get to hear the science part of it being like, wait a minute, hold on. Like, the science is actually not just caught up. It's available today and it's available for someone who gets it. So you have this moment of time where we get to play a small part in making sure people know that you should really, really, really should get NGS testing.
You really should. Yeah. Because that may have a , dramatic change to your potential life. And that's about, that gets me, I dunno.
Victoria: And I think, Abigail alluded to this, and so when I was diagnosed metastatic, like you, I had early stage triple positive in 2004, but then I came back as metastatic 10 years later.
And of course, my first thought was, that's it, I'm dead. I'm dying. That's it. It's over. But now, as Abigail said, the newly diagnosed, they come with a completely different attitude. Oh, [00:25:28] I have a chronic disease. Oh, I'm gonna be cured. And on the one hand , I'm really happy to hear that there is such a change
in the attitude. But reality though, unfortunately, is that it's likely that we will die from this disease.
Yeah.
Abigail: Yeah. Well, and I also think that it is hard for some people to understand, the prognosis really is very, very different for different subtypes. That's true.
That's true. Different mutations, different targeted treatments, whatever they are, but I think we haven't quite gotten to the point where everyone is getting that. To your point, Samira, that next generation sequencing testing where they're able to find the actionable mutations. 'cause we have some, we have several , that are very useful
and have medications that target them, but we're still seeing a gap between the people treated in that community setting and then in those academic centers.
Help with that.
Victoria: No, yeah, this is one of the missions that [00:26:28] we have on the podcasts, and I'm sure you do too, to educate.
And so the question for you is, what do you do about social media?
Being active on social media or some channels on social media helps drive the listeners to your podcast.
Samira: So there is the Samira answer, and then there is the Manta Cares answer.
The Manta answer is Yes. We have a couple people working on the Manta side, and I'm sure the team will say something different, which is, yes, of course, Samira, social media helps.
The question is, do I have any idea about it? And the answer is absolutely not.
Victoria: I find myself spending a lot of time these days on trying to create social media content and staring at these numbers on Instagram that are kind of ticking up very, very slowly. And I'm thinking, do I really need all this?
What is it gonna do for me?
Samira: That's a good question. , I think it comes down to what the goal [00:27:28] is.
Victoria: Let's answer that question, shall we? What is your goal? What is your
Samira: goal?
For Manta? For Manta, my goal is to get to every cancer diet in the world , I think we have an opportunity to democratize information in a way that enables someone in a community setting to make sure that they get the right information and the right support at every step of the way.
The podcast for me is a means to an end, if that makes any sense. It's an opportunity for me , as I mentioned before, to make sure we are highlighting people in the community. The podcast is not about Manta. The podcast is about us making sure we tell your story and Abigail's story and the story of Metavivor and Project Life and highlight those communities, because the work that's happening in the space is amazing.
Patients don't know about it at the right time, it's about finding them and making sure they get access to it. And for me, the goal is not just breast cancer. The goal is any type of cancer, right? Starting with breast, lung just 'cause
Victoria: there are more of us.
Samira: There are more of us. And then the lung side, the point that I was trying to drive is [00:28:28] like there's so much shift happening in the space that we really need to amplify as much as possible.
And so that's the goal. So if that's the goal, than we need to get to as many people as we possibly, otherwise we won't achieve it. , So that's on the Manta side.
Victoria: But I feel the same way on the podcast side for us because it's exactly for the same reason as you said,
there's so much stuff out there that people just don't know about and we want to make sure that they get the information they need, not just the science part, not the new treatments that are coming out, but actually - project life and other organizations that are doing so much.
So for that reason, it's important for us to get , as many MBC patients as possible to listen to us and not just in this country. And then the answer is what? Social media is probably the answer.
Samira: What I have learned, and I'm not a marketer, as I alluded to before, trust me, there are far superior people in marketing than I am. There is not a skill set of mine. What I have learned though [00:29:28] from other marketing people is you have to do a lot, a lot of things.
One thing alone isn't gonna get there. And you have to be on social media, you have to do Google. I think you called it manipulation,
Victoria: Google manipulation.
Samira: I did like that. I'm gonna take that. That's really good. You have to manipulate Google. I imagine Chat GPT feature somewhere in the story.
I think talking to others in the space absolutely helps. I think there is really nice advantage, honestly that I imagine that you guys have, is that there is an existing MBC community.
Victoria: Yes.
Samira: Right. So I think having an existing community makes a huge difference because you sort of have a out the gate. High intent audience.
.
Victoria: We have a built-in audience. And Abigail especially. When I posted something on social media that had Abigail, the numbers just went up dramatically.
Samira: I can confirm that for you from our side. Yeah.
Abigail: We leverage each other's social networks. I'm [00:30:28] sure, Samira, as you're talking to Dr. Tolaney, the reach from Dana-Farber was also implicated there too.
Samira: I am sure it did.
. As you can see, I I will happily talk as much as you want about ADCs and Bispecifics and the mechanism of action. And you talk to me about marketing, I'm like, ah, maybe, sorta yes, yes. The answer should be yes.
Victoria: No, I know. That's my problem too. I'd be happily doing one podcast after another.
I would love just to do interviews and talk to people. By the way, I wanted to ask you, I've noticed that in your podcast you don't edit a lot, so when you do an interview, you just put it out the way it is.
Yes.
Was that a, a decision that you made? Not to have it curated .
Samira: Yes. And I'll tell you why. The two parts of that. So one is we never pay guests. We never do it. Even if there's a pharma sponsorship in there, we won't be the guest. And there's a reason behind that is we never wanna influence what the guest says.
Victoria: Right?
Samira: We want it to be , as authentic as possible. So there's a clinician coming to talk about science, we should not influence what they say. [00:31:28]
Victoria: Right.
It's
Samira: kind of my stance on it. , So we never do that, and then we try editing as less as humanly possible. There are times where a guest will request us to edit, and if they do that, then we will happily do it for them.
, So we do do a minor editing, but it's mostly on like, audio quality and it's more on the technical side of it versus the content side of it. Because my, uh, what's the word I'm looking for? I just don't think there are enough places where people are talking kind of off the cuff.
There's a lot of curated content out there. There's a lot of like webinar. Let's have a script. Let's follow this rule thing. And what I have learned is that, or rather what guests have told me, is that I tend to ask questions that had them say things that they've never thought about before.
And they've never really said publicly before. And to me, that's where you get the real stories. That's where you get the real feelings. That's where you get the truth out there. And that's been my intention. Which is why we don't edit [00:32:28]
Victoria: as much.
That's a really good answer because I've struggled with this myself and I do edit.
I don't edit content. I edit filler words.
Oh, that's so good.
Oo, oo and ums. And because I tend to stutter when I speak, so I don't want to sound like that on air. So I want to sound very well put together. So that's why I do edit stuff, but not content. I agree with you completely
Samira: see what you are doing.
I think the guests on our show really appreciate. I probably should do that. Yeah,
Victoria: Honestly, I feel that people like to sound their best. Yeah. Okay. And it's artificial, it's like Photoshopping or putting your story on Facebook. But still, once it's out there, people want to sound their best, I think.
Alright, Abigail, you get to ask the last question or two.
Abigail: Okay, well, I think it would be really fun to do a joint live [00:33:28] episode at San Antonio.
Samira: My head was already there. Don't worry. I literally have a draft going for you. Don't worry, I literally had a draft for you and I was like, I'm talking to her. I need to plant it for her.
So, yes.
Abigail: Well, and I do have to say the Metastatic Breast Cancer Alliance and ABC8, we are doing a joint session at San Antonio on how to maximize patient involvement in clinical trials. Okay. We may wanna tape some of that live. That's part of the Alamo foundation, their lunch presentation.
So Dr. Cardozo's gonna be speaking on that. I think she is actually co-moderator with Leslie Glenn from Project Life. So we're very excited about that discussion. But my question for you, Samira, is if you had unlimited assets, unlimited resources, what would you do with the podcast?
Well, such a good
Victoria: [00:34:28] question.
, She asks such good questions, not like how many downloads you get.
Samira: That's a really good question. I think I would wanna do a weekly podcast. I think I would want to do a 15 minute, a five minute and an hour long and I think I would wanna do a series on, bear with me, symptom management because I think the topic that I have heard most come up in the community where I think we have honestly the least number of resources.
Symptom management.
That would be really, really helpful.
Victoria: Yes. We've talked about doing. This is what we want to do.
Why don't we do it together?
Abigail: I love the idea of finding someone 'cause this is how I learned from other people. Like we all have the same symptom. This person has tried massage.
This person has tried magnesium, but just the creativity and hearing from different people. Right. So my thought was. Find a patient that has , an [00:35:28] interesting or novel approach to nausea, whatever it is here's my five things that I do for nausea.
Victoria: And going across cancers makes a lot of sense.
I think that's a great idea.
Abigail: We've just added another task for Samira. We're really good at adding work for other people. We really are.
Samira: Remember workaholics, that three workaholics on a podcast
Victoria: We can do a podcast three workaholics talking
Abigail: It's not a bad name. But I do think, to your point, Samira, about not editing that the colloquial kind of informal, kind of it's just girlfriends getting together and saying, I have hemorrhoids. Do you have hemorrhoids? Because those conversations do happen when people get together, and I think that's what people are looking, it's those little solutions that make their lives just a little bit better.
Victoria: What we found, and I'm still finding actually that panels do very [00:36:28] well. When we have a few patients just chatting, they tend to do very well. I
Samira: agree. I think that's right too.
Victoria: And to me it's the most interesting part actually. Those are the podcasts I like the best ., I like the scientists when they come, but just listening , to people talk their stories and their experiences, I think that makes a big difference.
Anyway. It's been, it's been great. And we have a lot of work ahead of us, don't we?
Abigail: It'll be fun. Now, see, I told Victoria, , we start with Samira and we'll have all kinds of ideas. That happened,
Victoria: I think that worked. That worked very well. Don't expect, this episode to come out in three days.
Yes, ma'am. Sorry, that's not gonna happen three months,
maybe. Right.
Okay. We'll, take care.
Thank you so much, Samira. This was so much
Samira: fun for me. Thank you.
Victoria: Oh, thank you Abigail, as always. Good to see [00:37:28] you. Good to see you too.
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