After a hiatus from our segment on reviewing recent trials, we return to discuss the need for randomized controlled trials (RCTs). In the wake of the 2019 World Conference on Lung Cancer, we focus on whether a phase III trial of selpercatinib (LOXO-292) in RET rearranged lung cancer is feasible, practical, and ethical. We also have two questions of the week in this episode -- one from Dr. Derrick Tao, inspired by the MKSAP; and one from Dr. Sven Olson on hematology and oncology -- as well as an interview with Dr. Adam Duvall of OHSU on his career in the field of adolescent and young adult (AYA) oncology.

We have three questions for you this week: one from Ian Straehley, inspired by the USMLE Step 2 CK; one from Dr. Derrick Tao, inspired by the MKSAP; and one from Dr. Sven Olson on hematology and oncology.

We start this week with two Questions of the Week: the first is from Ian Straehley on the USMLE Step 2 CK, and the second is from Dr. Sven Olson on hematology/oncology. We end with an interview with Dr. Lynn Jansen of OHSU on the therapeutic misconception, optimism bias, and a deep discussion of the ethics of consenting patients for enrollment in early-phase clinical research trials.

We have three questions for you this week: one from Dr. Derrick Tao, inspired by the MKSAP; one from Ian Straehley, inspired by the USMLE Step 2 CK; and one from Audrey Tran, inspired by her journey through medical school.

We start this week's episode with a Question of the Week from medical student Audrey Tran on translational research and medical student training. Afterwards, we have an in-depth interview with Dr. Adam Cifu of the University of Chicago on his recent publication: "Physical Examination Pet Peeves".

We're back with more questions of the week! Our first question, from Ian Straehley, is inspired by the USMLE Step 2 CK; our second question, from Audrey Tran, is on deciding on a medical specialty. We end the episode with an interview with Dr. Frank Harrell of Vanderbilt University on the Bayesian approach to statistical thinking.

This week we launch a new segment on Plenary Session: Question of the Week! We invite Dr. Sven Olson on to ask a sample hematology/oncology boards question and we invite Audrey Tran on to ask a question from a medical student. Before that, we talk about the legacy of Dr. Charles Moertel and how modern oncologists, in contrast, will be remembered. We end the episode with an interview with Dr. Adam Obley of OHSU -- his fourth appearance on the podcast! -- on cancer screening.

This BONUS episode is a recording of a lecture that Dr. Stacie Dusetzina of Vanderbilt University gave for grand rounds at OHSU on June 19, 2019. The lecture is on the cost of prescription drugs and out-of-pocket spending.

Welcome to season 2! We're starting this season off with a little bit of everything: a critique of the FDA's accelerated approval of selinexor for penta-refractory multiple myeloma; an interview with Dr. John Reneau of Ohio State University on ECHELON-2 (brentuximab vedotin in t-cell lymphomas); an interview with Dr. Michael Hayes of Kaiser Permanente on parachutes in medicine plus the relationship between conflict of interest and editorial stance on tumor-treating fields for glioblastoma multiforme; and an interview with Dr. Stacie Dusetzina - a leading researcher in health care policy and the cost of cancer drugs, and an avid Twitter user - of Vanderbilt University on #MedTwitter.

We begin this week's episode by breaking down the recent phase III trial on voxeletor in sickle cell disease with Dr. Sven Olson of OHSU. Next, we feature guest Dr. David Steensma of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in a far-reaching interview on being well-read, running a small lab, humanizing cancer, learning from our past use of erythropoiesis-stimulating agents, understanding the headache of contract research organizations, defining cancer, and more!

This week we begin the episode by discussing MONALEESA-7 and why ribociclib has been shown to increase overall survival while palbociclib has not. We finish the episode with an in-depth interview with Dr. Stacie Dusetzina of Vanderbilt University on her work in pharmacoeconomics, specifically we discuss her work on the market value of cancer drugs.

This week we open with a critical take on our current system of disseminating scientific research, specifically focusing on the prevalence of -- and dependence on -- medical writers. In the second half of the episode, we interview Dr. Allen Pannell of the Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee on using a Frequentist approach vs a Bayesian approach in the context of a single clinical trial.

In this BONUS episode we give advice on how to use Twitter effectively: how to focus your content, how to build your Twitter following, and how to conceptualize of the platform as an information network.

This week we discuss the recent paper "Interpreting the Effectiveness of Cancer Screening From National Population Statistics: Is It Sound Practice?" with its author, Dr. Joaquín Chapa of OHSU. We then revisit the POLO trial with Dr. Emerson Chen of OHSU, who disagrees with last episode's analysis.

This week we cover some of the highlights from this year's ASCO annual meeting. We discuss the POLO study "Maintenance Olaparib for Germline BRCA-Mutated Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer" and the TITAN study "Apalutamide for Metastatic, Castration-Sensitive Prostate Cancer", both recently published in NEJM. We end with a presentation titled "Expedited Program Use and Patient Experience in Trials", which was given in a shortened version at ASCO.

We begin this episode by responding to listener feedback from episode 1.61's discussion of clinic appointment time and rates of cancer screening. We also tackle listeners' outcry over our take-down of BILCAP (spoiler alert: BILCAP is still a null trial) and how outcry like this highlights the need to train clinicians to think probabilistically. From there, we move on to discussing the recent paper by Myung Sun Kim in JAMA Network Open on waterfall plots and how they are a visual distortion of response rate. We end the episode with an interview with Dr. Jeff Sharman of Willamette Valley Cancer Institute in Eugene, Oregon on community oncology, enrolling patients in clinical trials, expertise of academia, and using real-world evidence.

This week we cover three papers -- "Postpublication Metrics of Randomized Clinical Trials With and Without Null Findings" by Murray et al. in JAMA, "Association of Primary Care Clinic Appointment Time With Clinician Ordering and Patient Completion of Breast and Colorectal Cancer Screening" by Hsiang et al. in JAMA Network Open, and "Exceptional responders with invasive mucinous adenocarcinomas: a phase 2 trial of bortezomib in patients with KRAS G12D-mutant lung cancers" by Drilon et al. in Molecular Case Studies. We end with an interview with Dr. Christopher Booth of Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, conducted in the Plenary Session Mobile Command Unit.

We revisit I-PREDICT, discuss the "Imputability of Adverse Events to Anticancer Drugs" (a letter published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine), and interview Dr. Daniel Hartung of Oregon State University's College of Pharmacy on his vast knowledge of the cost of drugs, specifically addressing Acthar gel and multiple sclerosis drugs.

In this BONUS episode, we interview Palmer Greene, a fourth-year medical student at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, on his recent paper: "Should Evidence Come with an Expiration Date?", published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

This week we discuss three paired papers on precision oncology published in Nature Medicine and then, later in the episode, go in-depth on the implications of these negative studies with Dr. Talal Hilal of the Mayo Clinic. We also discuss the use of magic mouthwash for oral mucositis with Plenary Session fan, Dr. Arjun Gupta of Johns Hopkins University.