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Don’t forget to provide a learning objective.
Relevant talks should – and those that qualify for CME
credit are required to – have learning objectives. Of course,
if you do provide a learning objective, it should go without
saying that you need to follow through with it. For instance,
if you begin your talk by stating the objective of, “The
learner will understand the newest therapies in myeloma,”
then don’t spend half of your talk discussing the biology of
the disease unless it relates directly to the function of the
therapy. So, when you’re reviewing your presentation, look
at your learning objectives and ask yourself, “Have I met
those objectives?”
Follow the rule of “one minute per slide.”
I regularly see people who are scheduled for a 30-minute
talk but show up with 70 slides. This is a big mistake. It’s
important to discipline yourself – for your own sake, that of
the audience, and that of the presenter following you whose
time you might be cutting short.
Don’t forget to focus on the patient.
It is very difficult, particularly with a clinical audience, to
talk about data outside of the context of patients. To help
the audience better understand the results of the research,
I will always lead off my talks by discussing a patient who
exemplifies a specific diagnostic or therapeutic dilemma.
This provides a frame of reference at the launch of the
discussion – and gives audience members the opportunity
to see how the data could apply to their own practice.
Incorporate questions in your talk.
Questions are a great tool for audience engagement – it
helps to break up the monotony of listening to a single
person at the podium drone on for 40 minutes. Whether
it’s multiple-choice questions or an electronic audience
response system, the questions should be oriented to your
specific topic and cover relevant data.
Don’t assume too much about your audience’s
background and knowledge.
There’s always the risk of assuming that the audience’s
knowledge of the topic being discussed is as sophisticated as
your own – especia lly when you deliver the same talk over
and over. This is simply a matter of researchers becoming
inured to their own data; they may be breezing through
their presentation, but they might have left the audience
behind back on slide 4.
Never apologize for a slide.
How many times have you heard a speaker say, “This is a
very busy slide – I’m really sorry about it, but if you just
look in the lower right-hand corner…”? If you have to
apologize, that slide should not be shown. Period. It seems
like common sense, but people do apologize for what they
are showing the audience, and it’s insane!
The bottom line: “Effectively delivering a research presentation boils
down to a basic principle: understand what you can and cannot do
in the time you’ve been given. There is not a topic in the world, no
matter what it is, that you can’t talk about for two-and-a-half hours.
But you have 10 minutes, so do it in 10 minutes – no matter what you
are presenting. It could be earth-shattering research that’s going to
win the Nobel Prize, but you are getting 10 minutes for that abstract
presentation, so work with it.”
To read more of Dr. Gertz’s advice – including how to know when
you’ve lost your audience – visit ashclinicalnews.org/the-dos-and-dontsof-research-presentations.
Are you guilty of any of these sins? Do you have any other advice
for presenters? Share your experiences of presenting at a scientific
meeting by Tweeting us @ASHClinicalNews.
ASHClinicalNews.org
Adapting to Scientific Meeting Climate Change
There’s no doubt that presenting at a
scientific conference today has changed
dramatically in the past 10 – or even five –
years. As science and scientific discovery
have evolved, so have the communication and connectivity within the scientific
world and with the public.
Gone are the days of hard-disk slides
packed into a suitcase and carted to
the convention center. The advent of
smartphones, YouTube, Twitter, virtual
meetings, texting, media presence, and
even easy access to cameras means that
information presented at major medical
meetings is often instantly public. That
immediacy has far-reaching implications
for how presenters choose to share their
information.
Physicians active in the scientific
meeting arena spoke with us about this
rapidly changing environment and how
researchers can adapt.
Forget everything you knew about
presenting at a scientific meeting.
Ulyana Desiderio, PhD, director of scientific
affairs at the American Society of Hematology (ASH): “In the last 10 years, people have
had to adjust to knowing that they can step
off the podium and have dozens of emails,
texts, or Tweets discussing the results they
just finished presenting.”
Irene Ghobrial, MD, an associate professor of
medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts: “Presenting research at
a meeting is not a one-way road like it used
to be,” said “When you give a presentation
to convey findings or a message in 2015, it’s
a two-way conversation.”
Embrace crowd-sourcing.
Michael J. Fisch, MD, medical director of the
Medical Oncology Programs at AIM Specialty
Health in Deerfield, Illinois: “[With Twitter
and social media] I have a much broader
network of people I can contact about
specific points or float ideas by; I can Tweet
a question to crowd-source information for
my presentation. The people I know and my
network of connections are vastly bigger
than they used to be.”
Social media is your friend …
Dr. Fisch: “Bright, young investigators
who are full of good ideas can become
widely known through social media. Some
people have quickly outpaced their similarly
talented colleagues because social media
increased their connections, allowing them
to be noticed in a big way very quickly.”
… but it can also be your enemy.
Charles Mullighan, MBBS, MSc, MD, coleader of the hematologic malignancies
program at St. Jude Children’s Research
Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee: “The negative aspects of social media are similar to
the positive aspects, in that people select
quick soundbites to publicize. They can end
up spreading only a small piece of what a
presenter is saying.”
Dr. Fisch: “When I have presented in recent
years, I’ve noticed a certain number of
people are looking at you, but others are
checking their smartphones or typing on
their devices, whether it’s taking notes or
Tweeting. I’ve even heard some colleagues
say, ‘The sound of the keyboard is the new
applause.’”
Tell a good story.
Dr. Mullighan: “Members of the audience
have more distractions at the tips of their
fingers, and presenters may have to work
harder to keep the audience’s attention. A
good presenter and his or her mentor will
spend time making their slides attractive.
Presenters have to keep things concise,
punchy, and visually and intellectually attractive.”
Dr. Desiderio: “Clear, easy-to-read slides and
an engaging speaker are always effective,
but at the end of the day it has to be a wellthought-out scientific story that gets to a
question that people want to hear an answer
to. When the ASH Program Committee develops the Scientific Program, the decisions
always come down to having spectacular
cutting-edge science that brings people in
the room – and keeps them there.” ●
ASH Clinical News
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