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Heroes

This virtual woman is very sick. Talking to her could make doctors more empathetic.

Giving a patient bad news can be uncomfortable, but med student Katie Goldrath had no choice.

Nobody likes to deliver bad news, but this was important. The patient, a young woman named Robin, had come in because she kept getting nosebleeds — and Goldrath had just learned the reason behind it was leukemia.

Goldrath knew Robin needed to get into treatment as soon as possible. She also knew if their conversation went poorly, Robin might get angry or even storm out, delaying her treatment ... and possibly endangering her life.

Luckily, if things spiraled out of control, Goldrath could always hit the redo button. That's because Robin wasn't a real person. Robin was part of a computer program called MPathic-VR, designed to help young doctors learn to communicate with their patients.

Robin. Image courtesy of Dr. Fred Kron/Medical Cyberworlds, Inc.

Goldrath's experience talking to Robin was part of a study to test out the program's potential.

A doctor’s words can change a person's life, but knowing what to say, and how to say it, isn't easy. It's a serious skill that has to be learned and mastered. Better communication can make patients feel better, both emotionally and physically. Poor communication, on the other hand, can lead to malpractice suits, patients not listening to their doctors, and sicker people.

Medical students like Goldrath usually go through special training to learn these skills. Common methods include multimedia trainings or holding mock conversations with students or actors standing in for the patient. But these can have downsides. The mock conversations can be expensive and hit or miss depending on how good the "patient’s" acting skills are. The "patient" might also not be able to give very detailed feedback.

A program like Robin's simulation might solve some of these common communication problems.

Motion capture was used to help produce Robin's range of facial expressions. Image courtesy of Dr. Fred Kron/Medical Cyberworlds, Inc.

Though talking to a computer might seem weird at first, Robin is designed to react as much like a real human as possible. She has her own expressions, mannerisms, and emotions. The software can also recognize what the student is saying and use a camera to track the student's body language. Even small eye movements don't go unnoticed.

"It was actually pretty incredible to see what it could pick up on," Goldrath said of her conversations with Robin. Did Goldrath lean in and look Robin in the eye, a welcoming, compassionate gesture, or did she act aloof and look away? The computer could record her body language and posture and provide feedback for the next time around.

The program also comes with two other scenarios for doctors to practice with: one that focuses on navigating family drama and another that involves talking one-on-one with a nurse who’s upset she’s been left out of previous conversations.

Doctors care about their patients. This tool can help them ensure their patients know that.

In the end, the study found that, compared to standard multimedia training, MPathic-VR students improved more and felt more positive about the experience. Their results were released in the April issue of Patient Education and Counseling.

While MPathic-VR isn't in any schools yet, Dr. Fred Kron, founder of the company who made the program, says they're starting to look at rolling out the software and want to continue Robin's story.

Everyone wants to be able to express empathy, but it can be hard, especially when delivering upsetting information in a high-stress and fast-paced environment. There's no perfect recipe for how to give bad news, but these kinds of tools might help people who find themselves doing so frequently to find their footing or even just hone that skill with compassion.

Joan Each Rowan has no idea how many people her salons have helped throughout the years.

The evidence, however, quietly speaks for itself.

You can see it in the disappearing "how to get help" brochures off the counter. You'll spot it on tab flyers that hang on a wall or bulletin board — the ones where you tear off a strip with a number to call.

"Those need to be replaced — and often," says Rowan, who owns the two Everything's Relative salons on Chicago's south side.

Photo via Everything's Relative Salon, used with permission.

For the past 20 years, Rowan has been pushing for her salon to be a place where people get help with more than just their hair. With assistance from advocates committed to ending domestic violence, she's been teaching her stylists what to do (and what not to do) if they suspect or know a client is being abused at home.She also places resources, like the brochures, in discreet areas of her businesses, such as the bathroom, for clients to take with them if they need help.

Now, the stylists at Everything's Relative Salons have become unlikely warriors in the fight against domestic abuse. Soon, every other stylist in Illinois will be too.

Illinois just became the first state to require that all licensed beauty professionals take an hour-long course on how to spot domestic abuse.

Starting on Jan. 1, 2017, new cosmetologists will have to take the course in order to obtain their license, as the Chicago Tribune reported. The training will also be folded into continuing education requirements stylists must complete every two years to renew their credentials.

Although Rowan wasn't the first or only salon professional to implement her own training without a law telling her to do so, Everything's Relative has been at the forefront of the issue for decades, having realized the important connection between the seriousness of domestic abuse and the simplicity of getting a haircut.

We at Everything's Relative would like to wish you and your family a Happy Holiday 🎁❄🎄☃🎅🏼🎁
Posted by Everything's Relative Oak Lawn on Saturday, December 24, 2016

Domestic abuse is an issue that no doubt affects many clients who walk through the doors at Everything's Relative — about 1 in 3 women and 1 in 7 men in the U.S. experience violence at the hands of a partner at some point in their lifetime, according to nonprofit Chicago Says No More.

The thinking behind the new law — which was brought before legislators by Chicago Says No More — is both obvious and clever.

"[Clients] tell you a lot," says Rowan, who's worked in the industry for 42 years. "People talk to their hairdressers."

When clients talk, proponents of the law say, it only makes sense that cosmetologists should be prepared to listen and respond accordingly, if a red flag should arise.

The law — an amendment to the Barber, Cosmetology, Esthetics, Hair Braiding, and Nail Technology Act of 1985 — was put in motion by Illinois Rep. Fran Hurley and State Senator Bill Cunningham, who said his wife's experience as a stylist years ago inspired him to act.

“She told me stories about her clients providing details about terrible incidents,” he explained to the New York Times. “She offered a sympathetic ear. She was young at the time and did not know how to get them help.”

The law aims to leave no stylist feeling like Cunningham's wife had — helpless and with few resources to provide a client in need.

The training will help stylists feel empowered about speaking up — without crossing a line, according to Rowan.

First and foremost, stylists are not required to report incidents of violence and won't be held liable in any case involving a client — an important aspect of the law meant to protect beauty professionals.

The training will, however, teach them how to spot signs of abuse and suggest resources clients can access (such as nearby safe havens or numbers to call) while making sure to carry a judgement-free and caring demeanor.

A Paul Mitchell cosmetology school in McLean, Virginia. Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images.

The course also outlines what stylists shouldn't do — like follow-up with their client on the suspected abuse the next time they visit the salon or try to counsel clients on their specific situations.

"We are not psychologists. We're not the cops," Rowan says. "But the sensitivity training will give the cosmetologists the confidence to be able to say, 'There's information in the bathroom over there if you need a hand,' or, 'You really don't need to put up with that.'"

"It's very, very important," Rowan says of the new law. "And I don't think it should stop with cosmetologists."

Similarly to how many workers are educated on sexual harassment or how to handle instances of discrimination in the workplace, it wouldn't be such a bad idea for other positions requiring a state license to get domestic abuse training too, she notes.

While Rowan can't guarantee everyone in the cosmetology industry will be on board with the new law — some have argued, for example, that the law puts unnecessary pressure on stylists to be crime-stoppers — she has no reason to think it won't be widely accepted: "I have not talked to a salon owner who has thought it was a bad idea."

"This is going to be great for everyone," Rowan says. "We live in a violent city. But violence begins at home."

Heroes

This retired NFL player put up an amazing gym that trains people with disabilities.

True

Retired U.S. Marine Brian Aft was in a dark place after losing both his legs to an IED in Afghanistan.

After going through countless surgeries, Aft turned to heroin when he realized the pain wasn’t going away. In time, he became severely addicted.

One day, as he was heading through a parking lot, a dude the size of an NFL linebacker started running toward him. "You’re gonna get robbed," Brian remembered thinking to himself.

Turns out the dude was an NFL linebacker — David Vobora. He had noticed Aft's injury — and apparent addiction — and all he wanted to do was ask what happened.

Little did Aft know that the question would change the course of his life forever.

Vobora always understood the importance of fighting back.

Picked dead last in the 2008 NFL draft, Vobora has the distinction of being that year’s Mr. Irrelevant. But he clawed tooth and nail and eventually became the first rookie Mr. Irrelevant to start a game in over a decade.

Then in 2011, a devastating shoulder injury derailed his NFL career. Vobora played through the pain until the end of the season. But he developed a serious pain-pill addiction along the way and decided to check himself into rehab.

All images and GIFs via Starbucks.

After going through an intense detox, Vobora started training again. But his drive to play professional football diminished. That’s when he decided to retire. It scared him; football was all he'd ever known.

With the odds stacked against him once again, Mr. Irrelevant found a way to make it work. He moved to Dallas with his family and decided to help other elite athletes at his very own training facility — the Performance Vault.

Vobora’s path took a new turn the day he met retired Army Staff Sgt. Travis Mills.

Mills is one of five living veteran quadruple amputees from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He, like Aft, was injured by an IED while on patrol.

From the moment Vobora saw him, he was drawn to him. "When was the last time you worked out?" Vobora remembers asking.

"I’m sorry. I don’t want to make you feel like an idiot, but I don’t have arms and legs," replied Mills.

That didn’t matter to Vobora. He didn’t see Mills as an Army vet who'd lost his limbs in battle. He simply saw him as a person who had a body. And as Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman once said, "If you have a body, you are an athlete."

Vobora and Mills got to work. And then they worked some more.

It didn’t matter that Vobora had zero experience training someone with Mills’ condition. All Vobora wanted to do was help Mills see what he was capable of.

In time, Mills began to thrive.

That’s when Vobora realized that no gym he knew of was providing the kind of work that they were doing. What about the other people — whether vet or civilian — who had their own physical disabilities?

"They’ve sort of been sidelined," Vobora says. "They fall into the rehabilitation process, but eventually insurance ran out, cash ran out, and where do they go, right? Where do they go to be apart of a collective group that has this community and this ability to push each other?"

Inspired to make a bigger difference, Vobora started the Adaptive Training Foundation.

It’s a nonprofit designed to empower people with disabilities and restore their confidence through athletic movement. By customizing their plan to what each person can do, they’re able to establish a solid training foundation that has the potential to redefine their physical limits.

This is how men and women like Aft were able to change their lives for the better.

The morning after meeting/getting scared by Vobora, Aft came into the gym and started working out.

He came every day for the next three months.

And he trained alongside other incredible athletes.

All of them were pushing themselves to the absolute limit.

No doubt they did things they never would have done at a normal therapy session.

More than just muscle, the foundation is building a stronger sense of purpose into each and every person it trains.

"They make you stronger," explained Aft. "They instill some insane confidence and self-worth back into you. Not just that, they’re giving you something to do, a place to be, a little sense of community with everybody."

At the end of the day, what sets Vobora apart as a trainer and mentor is his ability to make everyone feel equal, regardless of disability.

Because of the program, these athletes are able to shatter barriers they thought were set in stone. But you know what? They powered right through, lifted that dang stone, and hurled it as far away as humanly possible.

Heroes

Belize is working hard to save coral reefs. These kids may be their secret weapon.

Abalone Caye is a small island off the coast of Belize, and for about a week, it's home to an important group of kids.

The island, located in the middle of the Port Honduras Marine Reserve, is home to a small research station where five local college-age kids eat, work, and live together for a week each summer before heading back to the mainland.

There's a good reason for this expedition: These kids are in training to become community reef researchers.

Photo from TIDE, used with permission.

The Community Researcher Training Program is managed by James Foley and the Toledo Institute for Development and Environment (TIDE), an environmental institute in Belize. TIDE manages a large swath of natural areas in southern Belize, including the Port Honduras Marine Reserve. And the students, who all come from local communities, conduct research that's vital to helping us protect our coral reefs.

They learn how to do scientific research that'll help TIDE monitor and protect the reef, such as taking underwater fish counts, going out with fishermen to weigh their catches, or doing surveys of the local markets.

Foley also teaches them professional-level scuba diving as well as teamwork, which can be really important since the work means they may have to stay out on boats (or tiny islands) for hours or days at a time.

Photo from TIDE, used with permission.

Nice, right? But let's pause for a second and zoom out. Because big picture: Our reefs are in trouble, and they desperately need good management.

Coral reefs are an amazing ecosystem, but climate change is disrupting the little animals that make reefs, causing a potentially fatal problem known as coral bleaching. What's more, poor fishing practices means that reefs have been overfished, polluted, poisoned, trawled, and even blasted with dynamite.

Bleached coral in the Great Barrier Reef. Photo by Acropora/Wikimedia Commons.

Looking at all these problems caused by people, it's tempting to say, "OK, fine, we'll just close them off and keep everyone out." But that's neither realistic nor fair. Communities rely on these reefs for food and income, so managed access to the reefs is necessary in most areas around the world.

But managed access isn't just about limiting the number of fishermen — it's about studying and monitoring reef health and making policy changes as necessary, which is where the Community Researcher Training Program comes in. If we can head off problems like overfishing and pollution, we can help keep reefs healthy.

Foley's program has been successful because local communities don't always trust outsiders who come in and start telling people to change.

Often these communities have been living next to and with reefs for generations. They have deep cultural, historical, and economic ties to the reefs and their way of life.

So when a foreigner comes in – who hasn't lived there, whose family hasn't spent years fishing there – and starts ordering people around, it's understandable that locals would be mistrustful.

Foley has experienced this firsthand. He said that when he first arrived at TIDE, he'd try to talk to locals the conventional way, gathering locals into a room with graphs or discussions about trends and trying to tell them about changes they needed to make. But his words weren't always received well.

"People would be standing up, interrupting me, and saying 'You don't know what you're talking about. I've been fishing here all my life, and my father before me,'" Foley said.

And outsiders aren't always the best candidates for the job anyway.

Some research or management organizations rely on foreign volunteers, but doing that can come with drawbacks. You can't always count on volunteers having a lot of scientific training. Outsiders might also not understand the local environment or culture.

Even if the outsiders are highly trained professionals, it can still be a problem. Foley mentioned seeing otherwise good science derailed by a lack of local knowledge — some bit of information the scientist missed but that all the local fishermen knew by heart.

And at the end of the day, they don't live there. While a force of foreign volunteers might care deeply about the reef on an emotional or intellectual level, they don't live with it or depend on it for their livelihoods like the locals do.

That's why putting scientific power in the hands of these local kids is an awesome idea.

Photo from TIDE, used with permission.

In fact, many of the same fishermen who were initially distrustful of the program are now on board.

"We've actually had now fishermen standing up in meetings and saying, 'Five years ago, you telling me this, I wouldn't have believed it. But now my own daughter's collecting the data,'" Foley said.

Some of the students in the program are on an academic track already, but others are children of local fishing families and "second-chancers" — kids who've been in trouble with the law or dropped out of school and need another opportunity to succeed.

Foley's been doing this since 2011, and he says the entire program is a win-win. Even if the students don't end up as researchers themselves, they end up with a highly desirable skill set; some have since become tour guides, members of the coast guard, or even TV presenters. And they can still sometimes be called in to help from time to time, too.

This isn't just feel-good fluff, either: Good community management might be the key to saving reefs.

In July 2016, the academic journal Nature published a worldwide survey of coral reefs. The most interesting things they found were called "bright spots," places where reefs were doing substantially better than anyone expected.

A healthy reef can support a gigantic network of different plants and animals. Photo from joakant/Pixabay.

The bright spots weren't just remote, humanless areas either. Some were located right next to huge human populations and fished heavily. So what was the link between the bright spots? Where there were bright spots, local communities were actively involved in monitoring and protecting the reef.

Programs like these may end up being the heart of future reef conservation.

"It's really all about empowering local communities to participate in the management of their natural resources and building trust between the communities," said Foley.

So in the future, if you go diving and find yourself surrounded by magnificent schools of fish, sea turtles, blooms of color, and all the other signs of a healthy coral reef, you might want to remember and thank these community researchers.

Family

Bartenders in D.C. are learning how to stop sexual assault, and so far, it's working.

This new bartender program is showing sexual assault the door.

A few weeks ago, a woman came into the ChurchKey bar in Washington, D.C., to have a drink alone, but a male patron had a different idea.

He sat next to her and chatted her up. While the conversation seemed innocent enough at first, the bartenders working nearby sensed the woman was growing increasingly uncomfortable. If you're a woman and you've ever been to a bar by yourself, you're probably all too familiar with this scenario.

Photo via iStock.

However, what happened next was altogether different. According to Sam Nellis, the bar 's manager, two bartenders on staff intervened three separate times to dissuade the man's advances. Finally, when he went in for an unwanted kiss, one bartender said, "Hey! Don’t you think you’re getting a little aggressive there?"

When the man got up to use the bathroom, they made sure the woman was OK, helped her exit the bar through the back door, and got her into an Uber so she could get home safely.

How did these bartenders know what to do? The answer can be summed up in two words: Safe Bars.

Photo by Safe Bars.

Safe Bars is a training program that teaches bar staff to recognize the subtle signs of an impending sexual assault and stop it before anyone gets hurt.

Why is that so important? Because 1 out of every 4 women will experience some form of sexual assault in their adolescence or early adulthood. And at least half of those crimes occur while the perpetrator was under the influence of alcohol.

Considering those statistics, it's not hard to see why a program like this is so important.

Photo by ChurchKey, used with permission.

"The training helps us to recognize the subtle difference between a person okay with physical contact and someone who does not want to be touched," Sam told Upworthy.

"For example, if someone is leaning away from the other person or if they have their arms crossed." But it's also about reading the dynamic of an interaction over a period of time. If a woman suddenly becomes withdrawn in a conversation with man, that should put employees on alert.

When an employee told Sam about the program, which is part of the advocacy group Collective Action for Safe Spaces (CASS) and Defend Yourself, he was immediately on board.

"Frankly, it was one of those moments where you think to yourself, 'How is this not already a thing that everybody does?'"

The program is new and is currently being funded by a $20,000 grant from the NFL, which has recently donated approximately $10 million to initiatives battling sexual violence, including this program, after being criticized over multiple incidents where players have been accused or convicted of assault.

The program is usually taught in two-hour sessions but can be customized to fit your establishment's requirements.

It involves learning how to identify subtle signifiers of sexual aggression and role-playing to practice curtailing it. While the training doesn't guarantee that every sexual assault can be stopped, it can certainly help bar employees be more alert and ready to take action.

While it's relatively early in Safe Bar's launch, the story from ChurchKey is encouraging.

Photo by ChurchKey, used with permission.

Safe Bars is already planning to expand the program to other cities, bringing it to bars that want to put an end to sexual assault in their establishments.

Sam can't wait until the system is a given in his city and hopefully, one day, the world.

"My dream for Safe Bars is that it becomes ubiquitous in D.C. I hope that one day it will be a prerequisite for operating an establishment that serves alcohol."