New year, new beginnings. We covered a lot of ground last year and we're going to keep up the pressure and keep fighting the good fight. Wendy and Matt discuss what and who they appreciated about last year's episodes, and what they're looking forward to in 2026.

We promised to follow up on The Fall of Crozer Health and we'll drop our full episode on Monday. For anyone thinking of selling to private equity, you won't want to miss this.

Was dialysis the canary in medicine's coal mine of corporatization, as neoliberalism took hold in the US? Tom Mueller, journalist and author of "How to Make a Killing: Blood, Death, and Dollars in American Medicine", joins us to talk about how dialysis became a "microcosm of American medicine" and what we can do to fix it.

We make a lot of changes that don't make much difference. Why? In this episode, Wendy and Matt borrow the perspective of rancher and regenerative agriculture proponent, Don Campbell, who said, "If you want to make small changes, change the way you do things. If you want to make major changes, change the way you see things". We apply that big picture thinking to solutions-finding in healthcare.

In 2023, 82% of nurses had experienced at least one workplace violence incident, and nearly half were experiencing even more violence. And it's not just nurses. Surgeons, ER docs, primary care physicians and others know violence in healthcare is on the rise. Erin Pastore and Marie Lopresti, two ED nurses in Philadelphia, share their personal experiences with violence in their workplace, and how to restore the balance we all - patients and practitioners, alike - need. Listener discretion advised.

As the former head of the State Health Benefits Program within New Jersey's Department of the Treasury - one of the largest public health plans in the country - Chris Deacon unmasked the machinery of healthcare and didn't like what she saw. Now a nationally recognized voice for health plan transparency and employer empowerment, Chris joins us to talk about her new book "The Great American Healthcare Heist: Why We're Paying More and Getting Less".

You read that correctly. Sometimes we have to look outside of medicine to be reminded why we love it so much. National Book Critics Circle Award-winning journalist Sam Quinones joins us to talk about "The Perfect Tuba", his new book about people creating something bigger than themselves, hard work, practice, dedication, and community. Sound familiar?

Dr. Carlos Cardenas knows rock n' roll (and gastroenterology). A practicing physician in the Rio Grande Valley, Dr. Cardenas has been playing music for decades as a balm for his heart and soul, and as it turns out, for his patients. In the words of Dr. Cardenas, when it comes to healing people, "music is at the core of it all".

Are we living in The Gilded Age of medicine? So many of the challenges we face in healthcare today are rooted in the motivations of the people holding the purse strings, and unfortunately for us (and our patients) those motivations aren't always aligned with the Hippocratic Oath. Wendy and Matt dig into the history of corporate greed in this country, and how that history may be repeating itself.