Matthew Zachary, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder at We The Patients and Founder and Strategic Advisor at Stupid Cancer, shared on LinkedIn:
“They gave every medical student my book. Then Chicago’s weather had other plans.
The Robert A. Winn Clinical Investigator Symposium kicked off with a Chicago River cruise. (Three Hour Tour) Then the sky split open and dumped rain on all of us as we began to exit the boat. One minute networking, the next minute a floating stress test in business casual. Everyone got soaked.
And honestly, it was perfect.
Because the next morning I was keynoting for scores of 2nd and 3rd year medical students, invited by Dr. Joy Jones to talk about what it means to practice medicine in American healthcare without getting swallowed by the actual storm of abuse, corruption and unchecked malfesance.
The Winn Symposium did something bold: they bought hundreds of copies of my book, We the Patients: Understanding, Navigating, and Surviving America’s Healthcare Nightmare and gave one to every student. I then had to chance to sign dozens of them and speak directly with a community of extraordinary aspiring medical professionals representing
Then they built a survey to measure whether it changed how these future physicians think about patient experience. Data is pending.
This was not ‘Come tell your cancer story and inspire the children’. This was an academic institution saying: part of your education must include understanding what healthcare feels like from the other side of the stethoscope.
So I told the truth.
What it means to become a patient at 21 and spend the rest of your life understanding healthcare from the horizontal position. The hidden labor of illness. The absurdity of forcing sick people to become full-time bureaucrats just to access care. And the real danger: acclimation. Getting so used to preventable suffering that you stop noticing it.
What an honor to speak with the next generation while they can still decide what they will refuse to normalize.
Thank you, Joy L. Jones. Thank you, Dr. Rob Winn. Thank you Winn Awards Symposium, for treating patient experience as curriculum, not decoration.
Welcome to 2026: The Year of the Patient where the sick shall inherit the ballot. If this hits home, drop your story in the comments. Or how about a gratitude repost celebrating these students?
Are you new here? My condolences and my thanks. Follow along and stay loud with the rest of us.”
Winn Awards shared Matthew Zachary’s post, adding:
“We were beyond thrilled to have Matthew Zachary address our medical students at the Winn Clinical Investigator Pathway Program (Winn CIPP) this weekend in Chicago.
Thank you, Matthew, for being there and for being boldly truthful in helping students ‘understand what it feels like on the other end of the stethoscope’ – and why they must stay vigilant to avoid acclimating to a system that perpetuates preventable suffering.
Students, as you read We The Patients, we hope you’ll share your thoughts.”
Other articles featuring Matthew Zachary on OncoDaily.
