Re-cycling Presentations for Away Rotations?

Kara said:

Is it alright to use a presentation that you have previously put together for an away rotation, or is this frowned upon and absolutely not to be done? Would programs even discuss with each other the talks you gave at the end of your rotation?

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I don't see any problem with it...just don't emphasize that you did it at another institution first. However, my second rotation assigned me a topic so the repeat option was not there for me. I would use the presentation again, just spend some time trying to improve it...

I don't think it would ever be noticed. Despite the talk on here, attendings do NOT communicate at the level of what your talk was about two months ago. Also, you could be honest and say that this has been presented before but you might add more detail or a case that you saw on the current rotation. The letter writers at my home institution obviously mentioned my talk in my letter as it came up during a couple of interviews. This is about the only scenario that your talk would ever be mentioned between departments.
Almost every talk you have seen in medical school, whether a first year lecture or grand rounds lecture done by a visiting scholar, is a canned, oft-used lecture. Even talks at big scientific meetings have been done at many smaller meetings prior to your ears hearing it.
I did a different talk at different places because I tried to tie it to a patient or conversation with an attending at the place. I only did two rotations so it wasn't too difficult. If it is based on your own research like many choose to do, you have no choice but to repeat an earlier talk.

CNphair said:

I don't see any problem with it...just don't emphasize that you did it at another institution first.

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Goodness, these are our peers! I mean forget the fact that you might just learn something by doing (GOD FORBID) another presentation.

Ursus Martimus said:

Goodness, these are our peers! I mean forget the fact that you might just learn something by doing (GOD FORBID) another presentation.

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Yes, you certainly will learn more by doing a second topic. However, when your rotation evaluation depends largely upon your presentation (as it did at both of mine), there is a benefit to having one topic that you can improve upon. It always helps knowing more about your subject than the audience. And when you only have one month to impress attendings and residents with both your clinical skills AND presentation, I do not think recycling a topic is a matter of laziness, but rather practicality.

Kara said:

Is it alright to use a presentation that you have previously put together for an away rotation, or is this frowned upon and absolutely not to be done? Would programs even discuss with each other the talks you gave at the end of your rotation?

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there are different demands from your presentatino at different places. Some polaces want a power point presentation and others are more case review/literature oriented. No matter what you MUST make sure your talk meets the objectives in terms of style and content of the requirements of that program.

stephew said:

there are different demands from your presentatino at different places. Some polaces want a power point presentation and others are more case review/literature oriented. No matter what you MUST make sure your talk meets the objectives in terms of style and content of the requirements of that program.

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I agree wholeheartedly -- find out what the program requires in their student presentations. In general, the best topic to present is research you have done in the field (clinical or basic) as long as it is germane to RadOnc. Second best is to chose a patient you saw at that institution that was an interesting case and use it as a basis for a presentation. Third (IMO) is to pick a controversial topic and discuss it -- though some controversies have been done to death (check with the residents/attendings for ideas).

But in regard to the OP's question -- you can recycle your presentation and plenty of students do it. One potential problem is if more than one attending writes (Student X did a fine job presenting on the topic of Y) and another writes pretty much the same thing. I see how Ursus thinks one might interpret that you were lazy by using the same presentation twice. Personally, if you have a strong presentation that involved a lot of work (particularly research) I would take the risk and use it more than once.