Out of Patients EP432: Callus on Your Soul: Jenny Opalinski
Jenny Opalinski earned her credibility the hard way. She worked ICU floors and neuro rehab units where grief screams, codes fail, and the debrief ends with moving equipment instead of naming trauma. She watched good clinicians stack 10 to 15 traumatic events in a single shift and then get told to toughen up. That pressure broke something in the system and clarified something in her.
I wanted Jenny on Out of Patients because she lives at the intersection of care and consequence. She is a medical speech language pathologist who understands breathing, swallowing, and voice as survival tools. She co founded The Wellness Shift after a hospital code where a family lost a father and staff got zero space to process it. That moment became a line in the sand.
We talk about burnout, moral injury, and the lie that wellness posters fix systemic cruelty. We talk about why a children’s book called Dragon’s Breath exists because kids deserve better tools than adults get. We talk about calluses on your soul and why empathy keeps getting treated like an optional expense.
There are moments of dark humor, Polish family history, ICU absurdity, and the quiet relief of being seen by someone who knows the cost. If you care about patients, caregivers, or the people holding the system together with their nervous systems, this episode lands.
I survived brain cancer at 21. Jenny survived the machine from the inside. Listen for what happens when those truths meet.
Listen to this episode. Then do me a solid—leave a review. Tell Apple or Spotify what you really think. Five stars help us reach more people who need to hear these stories. One review makes a bigger difference than you know.
Share and repost this if the story hits home. Tag someone who needs to hear that their rage can build something real.
Out of Patients drops new episodes every week. We've been turning medical trauma into momentum for 17 years. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Producer
Matthew Zachary invented healthcare podcasting before podcasting was a thing. In 2007, fresh off building Stupid Cancer, he grabbed a mic, launched The Stupid Cancer Show and started broadcasting patient stories on internet talk radio when everyone else was still writing blogs.
17 years and 400+ episodes later, Out of Patients is still the most unfiltered healthcare show anywhere.
Matthew doesn't do softball interviews. Brain cancer at 21 taught him that time is finite and bullshit is expensive. He gets guests to say things they'd never tell Congress. CEOs admit what's broken. Patients name what actually hurts. Scientists explain what industry doesn't want you to know. The conversations other shows won't touch because of sponsor concerns or political correctness.
What makes him different: He's been on both sides of the mic. Featured in documentaries, testified before Congress, keynoted hundreds of conferences.
But he's also been the guy puking from radiation, fighting insurance denials, and watching friends die from paperwork.
That dual perspective creates interviews you won't hear anywhere else. He knows which questions make power squirm because he's asked them from hospital beds and boardrooms both.
No pre-approved questions. No PR handlers. No seven-minute segments. Just real conversations with people brave enough to tell the truth about healthcare. After 17 years, Matthew's still the guy Mark Cuban reposts when he wants to understand what patients actually think. Read More
🎄 The Most Famous Kids In Cancer Advocacy Are Back 🎄
