Peter Murphy Lewis sits down with Alicia Staley, Chief Patient Officer at Medidata and a four-time cancer survivor, for a conversation about identity, resilience, and why patient experience should shape healthcare technology.

Alicia shares how surviving cancer four times changed the way she sees time, work, and purpose, and why she now fully embraces patient advocacy as part of who she is. They also discuss the overlooked roles that make clinical research work, the stubbornly outdated parts of healthcare that still frustrate her, and the simple message she would put on a billboard for anyone facing hard seasons: keep going.

KEY TOPICS

Alicia’s Four-Time Cancer Survivor Story
• Processing what it means to survive cancer four times
• Her first diagnosis of Hodgkin’s lymphoma in college
• Learning to embrace survivorship as part of her identity

How Personal Experience Shapes Leadership
• Connecting an engineering background with patient advocacy
• Improving the experience of patients in clinical trials
• Putting the right tools in front of patients at the right time

The Unseen People Behind Clinical Research
• Clinical research site workers
• Engineers and product teams
• Patient-facing staff whose work often goes unrecognized

Why Healthcare Technology Feels Extraordinary
• Connecting patient data across systems
• Improving access to medical information
• Making clinical trial opportunities easier to explore

What Still Feels Outdated
• Alicia’s frustration with fax machines in healthcare
• How outdated communication methods can damage the patient experience

Mentorship and Personal Growth
• The impact of Alicia’s career coach, Jill
• Learning from multiple mentors and relationships
• Turning personal experiences into a resource for others

A Book Worth Reading
• The Magic of Thinking Big
• Why Alicia recommends it to her team and others

The Message She Would Put on a Billboard
• “Keep going”
• Resilience, persistence, and taking life one step at a time

EPISODE TIMESTAMPS

00:00 – Introducing Alicia Staley, four-time cancer survivor and Medidata Chief Patient Officer

01:12 – Wrestling with what it means to survive cancer four times

02:08 – How a college diagnosis reshaped her outlook on time and purpose

04:19 – Why she stopped resisting the cancer survivor identity

06:05 – Bringing an engineer’s mindset into patient advocacy

07:28 – Using technology to improve the patient experience in clinical trials

09:05 – The clinical research roles that rarely get public recognition

10:42 – How Alicia encourages and celebrates her team’s impact

13:00 – Why healthcare data integration is extraordinary

14:23 – How modern patient tools changed access to information

16:11 – Why fax machines still feel shocking in healthcare

17:57 – The value of a career coach and learning from many mentors

20:03 – Why The Magic of Thinking Big is her most recommended book

21:40 – The billboard message she would share with the world: “Keep going”

ABOUT PEOPLE WORTH CARING ABOUT

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