Things I Learned Making this Podcast in 2025

What does hosting a podcast really teach you about the nursing home industry and about yourself? After another full year behind the mic, many moments reshaped how we think about fighting for justice. From expert interviews to difficult cases, every episode brought a new perspective. In this year-end episode, nursing home abuse attorney Rob Schenk reflects on the most important lessons he learned in 2025 while producing and hosting the Nursing Home Abuse Podcast.

Intro

Schenk: 

Hey, out there. Welcome back to the Nursing Home Abuse podcast. Just fair warning, this is not going to be an episode where you are going to learn anything of substance, about nursing homes, about the law, really about anything that probably matters to your life or profession. This is another. End of the year self-indulgent episode for me where I’m gonna talk about one, two, or three things that I learned over the process of doing this podcast for another year.

I overestimated people’s interest in free giveaways

Schenk: 

So switch off if that’s not interesting to you. It probably is not. Not even the dirty half dozen that consistently watches or listens to this podcast is probably interested in that. But I like to do this at the end of the year. Why not? The first thing I learned about doing this podcast is that I overestimated people’s desire for free stuff.

And what I mean by that is that I ordered I think a couple hundred nursing home abuse podcast mugs that have been sitting in boxes at the house and. Thinking that, oh, this is something like, people participate in a quiz every week. I’m gonna, these things will be flying off the shelves of goodwill to everyone.

Absolutely not. I might have been able to unload three, maybe four of these mucks. You guys did not, you were not into it. I got the message loud, unclear. I actually think last month. ‘Cause as I record this it’s December, so last month, I don’t know, November, October Goodwill got about a hundred or so mugs.

So unfortunately if anybody enters this contest in the next couple months that we’re gonna continue to have a contest, hopefully there’ll be mugs left. I have a couple, but absolutely. I was shooting for the moon with this. No idea that no one would give two hoots about winning a coffee mug, although, I guess they’re pretty funny.

I like them. This one is the I can’t, 42 CFR 43 2 4 B one through five until I’ve had my coffee, which essentially is a long-term care nurse joke that I can’t. Do any of my activities of daily living until I’ve had my coffee. So I thought it was gonna be a great idea. I thought they’re gonna fly away.

I thought I was gonna be, I was gonna be like at the end of the movie, Rudy, I’m on everybody’s shoulders. Not the case. No one liked it. The other thing is this according to the stats, you guys like the episodes that are really in depth, not. Like scratching the surface episodes, we’re talking about deep dive topics, which kind of goes with where I turned a corner at this time last year.

Listeners prefer deep-dive episodes over surface-level topics

Schenk: 

Where I realized that I needed to start making or need, and one basically at the same time I needed and wanted to make content for the audience that’s actually there, which the, my audience of attorneys. Nurses in the long-term care field and long-term care nurse consultants and ombudsman. So these are individuals that already have surplus level knowledge.

They already have professional experience with these topics. So I guess that’s why I’m seeing that statistically when an episode is how to prevent a pressure injury, not. Not as consumed or watched as perhaps the episode that I had with Dr. Kathleen Kennedy episode 232 actually talking about the Kennedy Terminal Ulcer.

That was probably one of my more watched episodes in the past year. Other episodes that kind of fit this are the couple episodes that I did with Amy Swinehart. I love you, you’re the best. But that’s episode 238 and episode 246. Each of those is a deep dive.

Like the first, I think 238 is where we talk about the data points and the MDS assessment dealing with fall risk, so like really getting into the nuts and bolts. The other one was 246, and that was where we really got into the idea of what it means to have a care plan, like literally. How do we go from assessment to plan?

What does that look like? And then once you have the plan, what, like literally, what does that look like? Is it a piece of paper? Is it a screen? Who’s looking at it? How often do you look at it? Which those episodes I really enjoyed and apparently you guys enjoyed them as well. Another couple of them were the conversation that I had with Dr. Tracy Yap. On how you go from the Braden scale, like literally the subcategories and the ca and the Braden scale overall itself to specific interventions. Someone can be a. Medium risk and have a certain amount of interventions and some can be a high risk and have completely different interventions.

It’s all in, in that conversation, it all came down to what the score is for the subcategories. Another one was Ep 266 TBIs. I thought that was a really interesting episode. There was TBIs in minor falls, and that was with Kalliope Panagos where we talked about how a fall of two or three feet can do major damage to a nursing home resident.

So these are just examples of where you guys have said, Rob, I like this. Let’s you know, go as deep as we possibly can into the subjects. So that’s what I’m gonna try to do over the next series, unfortunately for you guys. I record, I batch record these. 50 or 60 at a time, and I’m not, we’re still in the, from the previous.

There won’t, when I say new episodes, there’s new episodes every week. They’re not, but they’re not new to me. I recorded them last year, or not last year, as of right now, I record between February and I wanna say April 50 or 60 episodes. So I really haven’t recorded anything since April, maybe May.

So I sat on them for a long time. They go in the queue and actually it makes some of the guests mad because they’ll email Gene and say, Hey. When’s my episode coming out? And I’m like I tell ’em it’s coming out, but it’ll be next year. Anyway, so these changes where I’m gonna try to, I’m gonna try to have episodes that really go deep.

Into the subject matter itself. Like nothing like you know what to do if you suspect what you know, I’m talking about how to read the payroll based journal records of a nursing home to understand how much nursing is on nursing staff is present on a particular shift. Like I’m ready to really go in and every week for.

20, 25 minutes, go in depth on something with the guest. But like I said, that will probably start happening in June. I think I have episodes queued up through June. Not saying the episodes that are queued up don’t deep dive, there’s a lot of deep dive episodes, but I will make a special effort to deep dive on these topics.

After the next season starts, which again, they’ll start being published, I think in June of 2026. Keep hanging in there. I guess another thing for me that I’ve learned is not that I wasn’t aware that I’m mostly an introvert. I think that, at least for me, using these words, an introvert is somebody that needs to decompress or needs to be alone in order to recoup energy after being with people.

And the extrovert is somebody who gets their energy from being around the people. Being an introvert when I record these things and I’m recording like five or six on a Friday, it takes me a day to recover. ’cause I’m constantly interacting with people, thinking of questions, engaging, that kind of stuff.

And that’s very draining for me as somebody that, you know. I’m a hermit. I’m like Obiwan Kenobi tattooing. I’m hanging out in my hut. I’m not interacting with very many people. So that day where I’m boom, having conversations with essentially strangers for, four or five, six hours, it’s very draining for me.

So that’s, I’ve learned now that on the days in which I record, I’m gonna have to start. Scheduling in downtime, like an hour where I just go take a walk so I can recharge the batteries. But I just never thought that I would have to do that. Maybe I was just getting old, maybe like I’m becoming an old man, I need to rest more.

My Southern accent is stronger than I realized

Schenk: 

But anyway another thing that I learned during the podcast over the past year is that my accent is thicker than I thought. Typically once I record an episode, I’m not listening to it. There are probably thousands of hours. Of this podcast that has been published that I haven’t listened to for a second.

Once it’s in the can, I’m done with it. I’m on to the next episode, but I guess recently I’ve had to go back and listen to a few minutes of some of the episodes. And it’s just, it’s strange hearing yourself and my southern accent, like my accent, I always thought was fairly neutral. At least to other southerners if you’re from somewhere outside of the south you pick up on it instantaneously.

But I always thought it was, not too thick, not too bad, but I. I guess maybe as I get older, the southern accent is becoming stronger and stronger. So that’s something I gotta work on. What’s interesting is that my toddler is developing my accent. So you got, a little southerner walking around with, diet, that kind of thing.

Behind-the-scenes team

Schenk: 

Can I have some milk? That kind of thing. I guess lastly for me, this is not something that I learned, it’s something that I already know, is that this podcast is not possible. Without a lot of help from the team. So Gene, the producer, does an excellent job. Christine, who is the video mastermind, she is the one that puts everything out on social media, cuts the clips, all that kind of stuff.

Does great work. I’m indebted to her. Vee is the one that if you are a potential guest, you’ll probably be talking to her. Or if you are a guest, you’re probably talking to her. She’s the one that gives you the bad news that your episode’s not coming out for a year. But without them, this would not be possible.

They’re as, as lame and as weak as this podcast is in terms of the content, in terms of me. You, you would be surprised at how much work it takes for. To put out a weekly video podcast. It’s insane. I have a lot more respect for all the podcasts out there. That keeps it going.

And even if it’s a bad podcast, a lot of work went into making a bad podcast. People that are listening to this might be like, man, Rob is terrible. I’m gonna start a podcast, man. Do it. Because you’re gonna see that, that it is way harder than you think it is. It’s not simply just, turning the mic on and talking man.

It’s, you gotta oh my gosh, you got podcast outlines that you gotta work from. Even communicating with the potential guests is almost a full-time job. It’s things that I would’ve never have thought of a few years ago and it’s just, it is a taxing endeavor to put on a podcast, but I love to do it.

As I’ve said before in this podcast many times before, this podcast offers me an opportunity to learn. I learn at least one new thing every single week or every single interview that I have with somebody, and that’s powerful for me. I never wanna stop learning and getting better at this particular job, and this podcast is a way for me to do it.

Fortunately for you guys, I get to do it in public. I, even if it’s nobody listening or a million people listening this has been an undertaking that has been worth the effort. I am far better at my job. Now than I was when I first started this podcast. And this podcast does have something to do with it.

I’ve met people through this podcast. As I mentioned, I’ve learned a lot of things through this podcast. The podcast makes me think about how these cases work and makes me think about what’s important in these cases. It’s. I dunno, maybe if you’re thinking about putting out a podcast, maybe do it.

Maybe, like on the other end of the rainbow, you’ll be better for it. And I guess that’s about it. I think yeah. So what day is today? Today Will, today, I know it is today, but I’m trying to think about when this episode will come out. I think this episode is supposed to, air is supposed to come out.

On the 22nd of December. So we’re on Christmas week. So that being said I hope that you have a fantastic Christmas. I hope you have a fantastic holiday season. Whatever you celebrate or don’t celebrate. I hope that you have a fantastic New Year and we will be back on January 5th, Monday, January 5th with a new episode which will be.

Documenting pressure injuries in nursing home cases, and that’s with Maranda Kearse. Followed by the differences between long-term acute care facilities and nursing homes, which will be on the 12th of January. So a couple of excellent episodes are coming up in the queue and the line. For you in the new year.

And with that, folks, thank you so much for your continued support. Thank you so much for continuing to watch and we’ll see you in 2026.