Fearless Feedback: Navigating Challenging Conversations with Confidence

Tuesday, April 14, 2026

10:35 AM - 10:45 AM PT

Location: Cascade Ballroom II - 2nd Floor

CE: 0.25 CME Credit

Speaker(s)

Alexandra Ortego, MD (she/her/hers)

Emergency Medicine Residency Program Director
NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine
Garden City, New York

Disclosure(s): No financial relationships to disclose

Disclosure(s):

Alexandra Ortego, MD: No financial relationships to disclose

Think of the feedback conversations that give you a pit in your stomach. Maybe it’s the message you need to deliver, or the reaction you’re bracing for. These conversations often go off course- too soft, and the message is lost; too direct, and defenses go up.

In this talk, I’ll introduce a practical framework to help leaders prepare for and navigate challenging feedback conversations with clarity, empathy, and impact.

Learning Objectives:

Identify common pitfalls in high-stakes feedback conversations and their impact on communication and behavior change.
Apply a structured framework to prepare for and deliver challenging feedback with clarity, empathy, and professionalism.
Demonstrate strategies to reduce defensiveness and foster collaborative problem-solving during difficult conversations.