Month: May 2025

Language is an important part of creating an environment where everyone feels welcome. Gender-inclusive (or gender-neutral) language is language that does not discriminate against gender identities and/or groups (Bent, 2019).

The use of gendered language is tightly woven into everyday life and includes a variety of words and phrases.  Some examples include using pronouns like “he” or “she” as well as referring to groups of people as “guys”. Gendered language is used in everyday conversation without much thought and often without the intent of being sexist or exclusive. Groups of mixed gender or those who do not identify as binary male or female can feel left out of the conversations even when the speaker’s intent is benign. Imagine referring to a group of men and women as “gals”, would that go over well (Bent, 2019)? Even for those who do identify as male or female, constant reminders of gender may have an impact (Elsesser, 2020).

Education is important in creating an inclusive and safe environment. Raising awareness is key to overcoming unconscious bias. For those trying to use more inclusive terms in everyday language, here are some suggestions for where to start, keep in mind using options that feel more natural will help the transition.

Referring to groups of people

o   Hey Folks

o   Hello All

o   People

o   Everyone/Everybody

o   Team

Using Individual Pronouns

o   Use the person’s name until they refer to themselves

o   Use “They” Instead of “He” or “She”

o   Avoid saying “preferred” pronouns. “Preferred” implies someone’s gender is a preference.

o   Introduce yourself with your own pronouns. “Hi, I’m Mary and my pronouns are she/her” this creates space for someone to share their pronouns if they choose.

o   Use “Mx” Instead Of “Mr,” “Ms,” “Mrs” or “Miss”.  It’s pronounced like mix. “Mx” provides individuals an alternative to being identified by their gender.

o   Use “Partner,” “Sibling” and “Child”. Like pronouns and titles, the labels we give family members, mother, father, brother, sister, aunt, uncle are all gendered.

o   Use “Latinx” Instead Of “Latino” Or “Latina”. Pronounced Latin-ex this term refers to a person of Latin American descent.

Referring to Occupations

o   Servers in place of waiter or waitress

o   Mail carrier

o   Police officer

o   Firefighter

o   Chairperson

o   Flight Attendant

o   Business People

Moving away from a binary perspective on gender can take some effort. The language we use with each other is a powerful tool in building inclusivity and creating progress toward change. Small tweaks to language usage can go a long way to respect non-binary individuals and may have the additional benefit of increasing overall gender equality (Elsesser, 2020).

References

Bent, S. (2019, April 19th). Blog. Retrieved from hotjar: https://www.hotjar.com/blog/gender-inclusive-language-workplace/

Elsesser, K. (2020, July 8). Editor’s Pick. Retrieved from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kimelsesser/2020/07/08/how-to-use-gender-neutral-language-and-why-its-important-to-try/?sh=7fb13dff26ba

Today’s technological advancements have made it possible for the healthcare industry to accommodate the general public’s needs. One such application of technology in healthcare is telemedicine. About 20 years ago, telehealth consisted of the most basic communication features such as SMS, phone calls, and painfully slow web chats. But today, there have been considerable developments in telemedicine as it has incorporated teleconferencing tools, remote patient monitoring devices, and even artificial intelligence (AI).

The mass adoption of telehealth has accelerated due to the current global health crisis. As most healthcare institutions and hospitals have been busy tending to COVID-19 patients, outpatient health providers must look for innovative and creative solutions. Telehealth is one of those solutions. To prevent COVID-19 from spreading, most healthcare providers have transitioned to a remote environment. They can attend non-urgent patients, diminish disease exposure for healthcare workers and other patients, expand access to care, conserve scarce supplies of personal protective equipment, and lighten the load for in-hospital healthcare professionals.

As we’ve mentioned, telemedicine isn’t a new phenomenon. The CDC highlights how telehealth visits have increased by 154% since the pandemic’s onset compared to the previous year.

Physicians and specialists have been able to attend to their patients’ needs through synchronous and asynchronous methods. Synchronous doctor’s visits are live telemedicine. Through teleconferencing programs, a healthcare provider can talk to patients in real-time and assess their medical predicament. There are also synchronous provider-to-provider situations, such as when a physician consults a specialist to form a better patient treatment plan. On the other hand, asynchronous telemedicine consists of “store-and-forward” technologies that include AI chatbots and online portals, as well as wearable devices that help healthcare providers monitor a patient’s condition just about anywhere.

In addition to doctors, nurses have been at the forefront of the telemedicine revolution. Telehealth nurses are the first responders whenever a patient call or inquiry comes in. Also, they maintain the efficiency of a physician’s office or healthcare institution. They organize medical records, schedule specialist consultations, and follow up on a patient’s conditions.

Unfortunately, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) reveals a drastic decline in primary care providers, with only 2% of medical students pursuing nursing careers. Indeed, there remains a huge void that needs filling when it comes to educated nurses. More universities are starting to offer online RN to BSN degrees to address the shortage. These programs train students to work in hospitals, nursing homes, labs, and more — despite never setting foot on a physical campus. Such remote learning solutions encourage more individuals to pursue this career path and enhance their leadership skills and patient assessment abilities. At this time in history, when a nurse shortage can jeopardize healthcare institutions, these programs aim to fill the workforce void and maintain our healthcare industry’s stability — both in physical and remote settings.

Telemedicine has been a crucial part of ensuring the healthcare industry can still provide care, especially amid COVID.  So we can only hope that the industry will be able to keep up.

Exclusively written for bbimaging.net

By: Ruthanne Joleen

Pediatric Ultrasound – A Practical Guide

By Allison Holley

eBook for iOs ISBN: 9780987526007

Priced at $39.99

Pediatric Ultrasound – A Practical Guide is an eBook guide to scanning in the pediatric world. A sonographer, Allison Holley, wrote it so the information is based on real scanning experience and research. Although this text was published in 2013 and some information is slightly dated, there are still many relevant and helpful educational topics. There are tips and tricks of all sorts about executing diagnostic ultrasound exams on children while also staying efficient. This book claims to be a practical resource for reference for anyone in the department, and it is just that.

It is important to ensure that the children are comfortable before and during the exam. Holley has turned “pediatrics” into an acronym. Each letter has an accompanying paragraph of things to be mindful of while performing the ultrasound. The techniques explained in this chapter give some great insight into approaching the pediatric population.

Every chapter summarizes patient preparation, probe and/or equipment selection, and scanning techniques. While this text does not extensively cover pathology, it briefly touches on common anomalies (e.g., Pyloric stenosis, appendicitis, etc.) and normal variants. The “optional views” section provides information about what to do and describes what to expect if you discover some of these variants. Normal measurements for each organ are provided in the text as well.

For nearly every ultrasound image included in this book, there is also a hand-drawn image to better understand the different scan planes in which the images are obtained. These images provide the basic anatomical relationships of structures examined in their respective scan. I find this to be a very helpful tool. Sometimes, referencing the ultrasound images alone can be confusing if the sonographer isn’t experienced with specific exams. This concept will come in handy, especially for a sonographer who may be new to pediatrics or for one who doesn’t have an “extra set of eyes” to rely on.

In conclusion, Pediatric Ultrasound – A Practical Guide is an overall helpful resource. The organization of this eBook makes it is easy to find the information sought. The layout of each chapter is consistent. Included at the end of the chapters are references Holley used. Readers can also use these for more in-depth information and further research. This eBook is a great tool for students and sonographers alike.

P – preparation

E – environment

D – darkness

I – information

A – anxiety

T – toys

R – rewards

I – initiative

C – control

S – speed

For the last six months, Andy Switzky has worked as the Human-Centered Design Lead at BB Imaging. The company culture, mission, and an opportunity to learn the science behind ultrasound sparked Andy’s interest. While new to the medical field, he feels right at home. Andy has worked for many years as a User Experience Designer (UX). Though the title may not be familiar, every consumer benefits from UX design. It seeks to make everyday products, services, and technology as user-friendly as possible.

Andy’s passion for UX design emerged over time. He began his career designing graphs, charts, and other graphics for professional reference and textbooks. He then transitioned to designing for the web and began to specialize first in how to organize information and navigation systems and then in ways to support people doing their work digitally and in the cloud. Over the last five years, Andy has focused on Human-Centered Design (HCD).

Human-Centered Design employs a wide variety of tools and techniques to improve innovation. The goal is to find the best definition of the problem and the optimal solution for that problem. HCD does this by exploring the customer’s mindset, behaviors, motivations, biases, assumptions, and environment. The more that is learned about the customer’s experience, the better their needs can be met. Proposed solutions are tested with customers repeatedly.

Currently, Andy is working on BB Imaging’s TeleScan project. TeleScan will allow BBI to uphold its mission of improving health outcomes by increasing access to care for pregnant patients, regardless of their geographic location or financial means. He takes great pride in his role on this technology team.

Andy is another example of the unicorns that are a part of the BBI culture. We appreciate his contribution to increasing access to care for patients.

Written by:

Sydney McQuade, MEd, LPC

Counterbalance Counseling – Austin, TX

Since March 13, the following 293 days of 2020 were exhausting.  This upheaval was followed by an equally challenging first four months of 2021, where shocking events and losses have continued.  The global pandemic required us to relinquish control of our everyday lives on a grand scale, both at work and at home, to survive.  What a tradeoff and sacrifice it has been.  Many were forced to leave jobs, either willingly to care for and teach children or because of layoffs and cutbacks, adding to the uncertainty and chaos. Racial injustice and deaths piled onto the collective sense of loss and fear. Whatever your political position, everyone experienced a tumultuous election cycle making adaptation, adjustment, and acceptance the name of the game.

In the book “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers,” author and primatologist Robert Sapolsky, MD, explains that zebras only experience stress as episodic rather than pervasive.  Zebras do not avoid certain watering holes because there COULD be a lion lurking in the brush; they only experience stress if a lion IS chasing them in the present moment.  When applied to the last year’s events, it all felt like one long, traumatic and exhausting lion chase.  Since we are not zebras, we do worry about the lion that could chase us; or the predator that did hunt us the previous day; even if some of the drawn-out events of the last 365 days have ended, we’re not necessarily able to snap out of it like a Zebra.  It would be nice if we could!

Most people, especially those experiencing a recent loss, will understandably continue to experience psychological distress either due to how we had to adapt to survive or the sustained grief, worry, and fear that accompanies those adaptations and loss.  As with any adaptation made to survive, the accompanying psychological distress can either come to us in the present moment or arise down the road once we are out of survival mode.  The need to cope and heal after the fact is often a concept that feels confusing to people. Still, we know that late-onset feelings of psychological distress (sadness, anger, grief, fear) can come to us only once we’re safe and out of danger.  Now that we are safe, we CAN feel again.  As mentioned previously, we are not zebras and need to complete our stress cycles somehow to move forward and rebalance ourselves.  Here are a few ideas for how to do this:

THANK YOURSELF

Thank yourself for surviving, and be grateful to your mind, body, and emotional abilities that helped you survive.  You may have survived by staying home, compartmentalizing your feelings, sleeping more, or isolating yourself, not seeing friends or family.  You may have survived by focusing on work or getting a puppy.  Whatever it is, notice it and thank yourself because, in one way or another, it kept you safe.

LABEL YOUR EXPERIENCE

Label your feelings bravely and adequately.  Is what you’re feeling grief?  Is it sadness?  Is it fear?  If you label your feelings appropriately, it can help you address them in the most authentic and congruent way.

TYPE OF CARE

Note if you need active self-care, passive, or a combination.  You may need to do something active to relieve your stress cycle (plant a new garden, exercise, find a therapist) or combine it with something subdued and more passive (nap when tired, sit outdoors).  The point is, you may need to do something to facilitate the healing, and that’s okay.

SELF-COMPASSION

You can’t authentically feel your feelings or heal if you’re judging yourself for needing to.  Take the self-judgment out of the equation, and psychological distress becomes lighter, more focused, and accessible.  Judging yourself for your feelings creates distraction making it challenging to reach the core of what needs healing.

SOCIAL SUPPORT

Zebras surround the herd-mate who is being chased, and it keeps everyone in the herd safe.  Need I say more?

REBALANCE

Take inventory of the tradeoffs you had to make to survive and apply some intentional problem solving to how you can rebalance those tradeoffs now that things can and need to heal.  Maybe you over-committed to distract yourself and now feel exhausted, so perhaps it’s time to cut something out, or maybe you cut things out to focus and get the things done, but now it may be time to add back in some self-care.

Ultrasound can take a physical toll on a sonographer’s body. In the past decade, the exam protocols we follow have become more detailed, the average patient body habitus has increased, and physicians choose diagnostic Ultrasound more often. While these factors alone increase the potential for a Sonographer to develop a Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorder (WRMSD), the risk is further increased if:

1. You are vertically challenged with a height less than the national average, which for men is five foot nine inches, and for women five foot 4 inches (Body Measurements, 2021).

2. You scan in a highly specialized modality, or

3. You refuse to slow down despite pain because you don’t want to let down your coworkers, your physicians, or your patients.

A white paper published by SDMS in 2018 reported that 90% of sonographers had experienced some sort of pain resulting from their job (Murphey, 2018). 9 out of 10 professionals experiencing pain are too many! BB Imaging surveyed sonographers and found that of the 106 respondents, some were experiencing pain as early as two years into their career. What if we told you it doesn’t have to be like this? That scanning in pain doesn’t have to be a daily part of life?

You can have a long and enjoyable career in Ultrasound!  Saving yourself from injury starts before you even pick up a probe.

1. Take the time to adjust your workstation. Ensure the bed, chair, and machine height are all at a comfortable level, and your patient is as close to you as possible. Correct positioning can prevent your arm from being overly abducted and your neck and back from twisting too far.

2. Encourage your patient to relax as much as possible and position them so you may utilize alternative windows. This technique can keep you from having to use more pressure to obtain diagnostic images. Maintain constant communication throughout the exam. If your patient is well informed, they may be less anxious and more relaxed.

3. Keep linens and cable cords out of the way. Fighting with the towel or probe cords can make you push too hard. Wear a cable brace to secure your cord and help make a clear path for your exam.

4. Use physics and your machine to get your images as sharp as possible. Try probes with different frequencies, change the machine presets, and scan perpendicular to organ interfaces. Always keep in mind, “how am I going to decrease the distance between the transducer and the target?”

5. Alternate between sitting and standing while scanning. A combination of sitting and standing offers variety and balance in your day. Our bodies respond best to balance and movement, which helps support safe postures.

6. Alternate between scanning hands. This practice provides periods of rest for the hand and wrist not in use.

7. Take Mini breaks. Stretch out the fingers of your scanning hand when making measurements, perform small neck/arm stretches between patients, get up and walk around periodically when not scanning. This movement helps put your scanning muscles in recovery mode.

8. Use post-processing to obtain images and measurements from cine clips. This method can help reduce the amount of time spent pushing.

9. Incorporate help from students, colleagues, and nurses – work as a team!

10. Take care of yourself. Get regular massages, take time to work out and strengthen your body, and take your vacations; you earned it! Treat your body like you would your car – the more you take care of it, the longer it will run!

Works Cited

Body Measurements. (2021, January 14). Retrieved from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/body-measurements.htm

Murphey, S. (2018). Work Related Musculoskeletal Disorders in Sonography. Plano: Society of Diagnostic Medical Imaging.

It’s no secret that a budget can drastically improve your finances. A monthly budget gives you a clear picture of where your money is going and sets parameters for your spending.

Simple in theory but hard to implement. Budgeting can be especially tricky if you have an irregular income.

How can you make significant financial strides when you’re not sure how much money will come in this month?

Here are four tips for getting organized when on an hourly income:

1.     Find Your Worst Month

Irregular incomes can thrust us into a “feast or famine” cycle. Some months you’re eating prime rib, while others, you’re secretly selling your kids toys on Craigslist. What can you do?

The key is planning your month based on a worst-case scenario. 

Look at your income over the past six months. What was your lowest earning month? Moving forward, we’ll want to use this as a baseline.

By creating a budget based on your worst month, you’ll ensure that you always have enough money to fund your expenses. It’s much better to have extra money than not enough when it comes to budgeting.

2.     Spend Your Money on Paper First

Now that you know your lowest potential income, it’s time to create a budget.

Write your lowball number at the top of your budget page and start totaling your expenses. Your income must be higher than your expenses.

As you go through your monthly expenses, start with the essentials. Make sure you allocate money toward your house, utilities, and transportation. Once you fund those items, you can start budgeting other bills and expenses. It’s important to account for every single dollar you will spend this month.

Once you get to the bottom of the page, total up your expenses. This number should be smaller than the number at the top. If it’s not, you might need to go back and make some cuts.

By creating a budget and spending money on paper first, you can catch and solve money problems before they happen.

3.     The Gravy on the Biscuit

What about those really good months? The ones where you pick up extra hours and make a whole lot more money than usual?

Consider all of that gravy on the biscuit! You can direct any extra money you bring in toward your financial goals. Are you trying to build up your emergency fund, save for a big vacation, or knock out a student loan? This surplus of money can be laser-focused on that goal.

If you’ve had an excellent month, add some extra money into your budget for you to enjoy. Just make sure you have a plan for every additional dollar you brought in so that it doesn’t disappear.

4.     Periodic Adjustments

Now and then, you’ll want to adjust your “worst-case scenario” number. If you notice you’ve made a lot more for multiple months, it may be time to adjust. Look back and see what your worst month had been and adjust accordingly.

However, if at any point you make less than your worst-case number, it may be time to adjust it down.

Look deeper to see if there were anomalies that may have caused the lower month. What happened to cause it to be short? Could it happen again? Missing a week because a kid was sick could happen again. A snowstorm in Texas, however, can likely be written off as a one-time thing.

Budgeting for an irregular income can be challenging, but having a plan will add some consistency and clarity to your finances.

Pregnancy is an incredibly exciting time for parents, but it comes with chances for complications.  Possible issues can include high blood pressure, preeclampsia, preterm labor, and gestational diabetes. Without good prenatal care, these complications can pose significant health risks. For this reason, many healthcare providers, startups, and workers are investing their time and resources in using technology to revolutionize prenatal care. In this post, we will discuss some of these technologies.

Wearables 

Wearable technology is one of the most useful tools in healthcare — from smartwatches that track your daily steps and your heart rate to sophisticated biosensors that collect data such as movement and respiratory rates. Today’s wearables can enlighten you and your doctor about your health status. For those who might need constant monitoring during pregnancy, wearables can help ensure safety.

One wearable is Nuvo Group’s Invu, which measures markers of maternal and fetal wellbeing. This tool can measure metrics such as fetal heart rate, fetal movements, uterine activity, and maternal heart rate ⁠— all by using surface electrodes. The data is then sent remotely to the patient’s obstetrician for documentation and monitoring. Nuvo Group designed Invu to fit comfortably during pregnancy thanks to modern PCBs that allow the manufacturer to fit powerful components in unusually shaped devices. As wearable technology continues to innovate, more compact and affordable products will likely be available on the market.

Imaging 

Imaging tools such as ultrasounds serve an important purpose throughout pregnancy. Aside from providing visual data, ultrasounds allow for prompt investigation and management of acute and chronic medical symptoms during pregnancy. However, not every patient can easily access imaging and diagnostics facilities.

To make imaging more accessible, Israeli startup PulseNmore has created an at-home handheld ultrasound system called Instinct. For $300, Instinct allows patients to record and send images to their obstetrician. This device enables obstetricians to evaluate critical pregnancy information — such as placental location, amniotic fluid, fetal position, and cardiac activity. When there’s a considerable demand for Telehealth services, such innovative tools allow patients to better provide information to their obstetricians. This technology can significantly benefit those in rural areas who don’t have immediate access to health facilities.

Apps

You can do almost anything on a smartphone. Through apps developed by various healthcare providers, it is now possible to set clinic appointments and talk to a general practitioner. This service is beneficial for patients who need immediate insight and advice regarding their pregnancy. New York startup Maven Clinic has launched an app geared toward pregnant patients — where users can book appointments and even video chat with obstetricians, therapists, nutritionists, and more. The app also has a practitioner-moderated forum where users can engage with the community.

Thanks to today’s technology, there can be less worry and anxiety during pregnancy. For more healthcare-related posts, be sure to visit our blog.Pregnancy is an incredibly exciting time for parents, but it comes with chances for complications.  Possible issues can include high blood pressure, preeclampsia, preterm labor, and gestational diabetes. Without good prenatal care, these complications can pose significant health risks. For this reason, many healthcare providers, startups, and workers are investing their time and resources in using technology to revolutionize prenatal care. In this post, we will discuss some of these technologies.

Wearables 

Wearable technology is one of the most useful tools in healthcare — from smartwatches that track your daily steps and your heart rate to sophisticated biosensors that collect data such as movement and respiratory rates. Today’s wearables can enlighten you and your doctor about your health status. For those who might need constant monitoring during pregnancy, wearables can help ensure safety.

One wearable is Nuvo Group’s Invu, which measures markers of maternal and fetal wellbeing. This tool can measure metrics such as fetal heart rate, fetal movements, uterine activity, and maternal heart rate ⁠— all by using surface electrodes. The data is then sent remotely to the patient’s obstetrician for documentation and monitoring. Nuvo Group designed Invu to fit comfortably during pregnancy thanks to modern PCBs that allow the manufacturer to fit powerful components in unusually shaped devices. As wearable technology continues to innovate, more compact and affordable products will likely be available on the market.

Imaging 

Imaging tools such as ultrasounds serve an important purpose throughout pregnancy. Aside from providing visual data, ultrasounds allow for prompt investigation and management of acute and chronic medical symptoms during pregnancy. However, not every patient can easily access imaging and diagnostics facilities.

To make imaging more accessible, Israeli startup PulseNmore has created an at-home handheld ultrasound system called Instinct. For $300, Instinct allows patients to record and send images to their obstetrician. This device enables obstetricians to evaluate critical pregnancy information — such as placental location, amniotic fluid, fetal position, and cardiac activity. When there’s a considerable demand for Telehealth services, such innovative tools allow patients to better provide information to their obstetricians. This technology can significantly benefit those in rural areas who don’t have immediate access to health facilities.

Apps

You can do almost anything on a smartphone. Through apps developed by various healthcare providers, it is now possible to set clinic appointments and talk to a general practitioner. This service is beneficial for patients who need immediate insight and advice regarding their pregnancy. New York startup Maven Clinic has launched an app geared toward pregnant patients — where users can book appointments and even video chat with obstetricians, therapists, nutritionists, and more. The app also has a practitioner-moderated forum where users can engage with the community.

Thanks to today’s technology, there can be less worry and anxiety during pregnancy. For more healthcare-related posts, be sure to visit our blog.

I don’t know anyone that enjoys difficult conversations, do you?  In fact, most people will go far out of their way to avoid them.  Unfortunately, that’s not the answer – not if it’s someone you really need to work with – like your team, patients, physicians, and family… just to name a few.  I wish communication was always easy and everyone would accept what we say in the way it was intended.  It just doesn’t always work that way.  So sometimes, we just try and avoid the people or the problem.

The avoidance strategy doesn’t work.  When was the last time you ignored a tough conversation, and things got better?  Yep.  Just what I thought.  In this article, I am going to share a few tips that may just help during that next tough conversation.

I don’t know what’s more difficult – the tough conversation I was expecting or the one I wasn’t.  Since you can prepare for tough conversations you know are coming, let’s talk about a way to handle the unexpected ones.  Use my friend, LAURIE.

Where did this come from?

Can you remember the last time someone came up to you, clearly not happy, and they wanted to make that YOUR problem?  They could have been frustrated, angry, or just got up on the wrong side of the bed.  When that happens – stop, take a breath and LISTEN.  Yes, listen.  When someone is all wound up, I believe there is a physical need to let it out!  When you try and stop them by cutting them off or ignoring them, it just adds fuel to the fire.  Make eye contact.  Focus and ACKNOWLEDGE them.

When you listen, really listen.  Try to hear and understand what they are saying from their perspective.  Show them you UNDERSTAND what they are communicating.  One way to do this is to try and REPHRASE what you think you heard them say and respond with something like, “It sounds like you are saying…..xxxxxx…  Do I have that right?”. The ability to rephrase and gain confirmation that what you heard is what they said goes a long way to taking out some of the steam.  (Listening is not the same thing as agreeing.)

Next, IDENTIFY what they are looking for you to do.  It is one of two things. Do something/fix it or Just Listen.  If you try and fix it too soon by stopping them to propose a solution before they have finished sharing, it merely adds gas to the fire.  Remember the last time you wanted to vent and were shut down?  It can be infuriating!   Letting them get what they want to say off their chest can go a long way to diffusing the negative energy.  What role do they want you to play for them?

 Once you have ‘heard’ them, and they know it (because you were able to rephrase it and gain confirmation), then you can determine the right next steps.  Engage. Now is the time to transition from the problem to problem-solving.

Listen.

Acknowledge.

Understand.

Rephrase.

Identify.

Engage.

LAURIE.

She’s there.  Call on her when you need her to handle those tough conversations.