In this episode, recorded live at the 2025 ASCO annual meeting, host Shikha Jain, MD, speaks with Sonali Smith, MD, about the power of mentorship and advocacy, preserving the academic mission of research within health care systems and more.

• Welcome to another exciting episode of Oncology Overdrive 1:34
• About Smith 1:56
• The interview 3:14
• What was your journey to get to where you are now in your career? 3:38
• How do you incorporate your advocacy work into patient care, and how do you advise other physicians on their advocacy journeys? 12:09
• Jain and Smith on how the politicization of health care has resulted in the rise of and demand for public physician advocacy. 13:32
• Jain and Smith on the impacts of today’s climate on clinical research work. 18:24
• Can you speak about your ELAM capstone project discussing how to preserve academics? 25:11
• Are there any lymphoma studies presented at ASCO this year that have excited you or interested/educated you? 31:54
• Jain and Smith on how ASCO underlines the importance of international collaboration in oncology research. 36:46
• If someone could only listen to the last few minutes of this episode, what would you want listeners to take away? 39:47
• How to contact Smith 40:27
• Thanks for listening 41:03

Sonali M. Smith, MD, is the Elwood V. Jensen professor of medicine, section chief of hematology/oncology, co-leader of the cancer service line, and co-director of the lymphoma program at the University of Chicago in the department of medicine. She is a clinical investigator in lymphoma and a clinical expert in Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphomas.

We’d love to hear from you! Send your comments/questions to Dr. Jain at oncologyoverdrive@healio.com. Follow Healio on X and LinkedIn: @HemOncToday and https://www.linkedin.com/company/hemonctoday/. Follow Dr. Jain on X: @ShikhaJainMD. Smith can be reached on LinkedIn or via email smsmith@bsd.uchicago.edu.

Disclosures: Jain and Smith report no relevant financial disclosures.