Abstract accepted as poster presentation, PI doesn't think I need to go

[OrangeCaramel]

I'll keep this short. I'm an M2, starting rotations in May, and my first abstract that I ever submitted in my career was accepted as a poster presentation at a national conference. It's not an oral presentation, but I'm just happy to be validated. I'm excited/ willing to go to the conference, even if it's only for a day in order to be at my poster during the assigned poster session. However, my PI said I don't NEED to go, which confuses me. I thought one presenting author had to be at the poster session, otherwise it's counted as a no-show.

Logistics indeed may be hard to get to go to the conference, esp if I don't get a travel fund, but I'd rather shell out a couple hundred dollars than be blacklisted for not showing up to my poster (does this happen?). I'm just confused why my mentor said I don't need to go...I was actually looking forward to getting a little feedback on my project from other people. I'd have to miss a day during the first 2 weeks of my first rotation, but it shouldn't be a big deal, right? (ik that attendance policy differs based on rotation/ school)

tl;dr do i have to attend a poster session? (I want to, just confused why I was told it's not necessary).

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[watermelon master]

I'll keep this short. I'm an M2, starting rotations in May, and my first abstract that I ever submitted in my career was accepted as a poster presentation at a national conference. It's not an oral presentation, but I'm just happy to be validated. I'm excited/ willing to go to the conference, even if it's only for a day in order to be at my poster during the assigned poster session. However, my PI said I don't NEED to go, which confuses me. I thought one presenting author had to be at the poster session, otherwise it's counted as a no-show.

Logistics indeed may be hard to get to go to the conference, esp if I don't get a travel fund, but I'd rather shell out a couple hundred dollars than be blacklisted for not showing up to my poster (does this happen?). I'm just confused why my mentor said I don't need to go...I was actually looking forward to getting a little feedback on my project from other people. I'd have to miss a day during the first 2 weeks of my first rotation, but it shouldn't be a big deal, right? (ik that attendance policy differs based on rotation/ school)

tl;dr do i have to attend a poster session? (I want to, just confused why I was told it's not necessary).

Hey "PI", I'd like to go to the conference, I know I don't have to go (which you don't) but it would be cool if I did! Also, my school gives a stipend (hopefully they do) so I don't have to pay out of pocket!"

There's literally no other way to say it

 

[Merely]

You don’t have to go because someone else on your team will present it..if you want to go then go it’s not a difficult situation lol

 

[sella.turcica]

You don’t have to go because someone else on your team will present it..if you want to go then go it’s not a difficult situation lol

Or the PI is just being cheap

 

[evilbooyaa]

While ideally most places would like to verify that your poster has been hung up, I don't routinely see verification that somebody is there standing next to it.

If somebody from your team is going they can hang it up and 'receive credit' for it. Go if you actually want to go to the meeting. It'd be cool as a MS2 to have research to present at a national conference, IMO.

 

[OrangeCaramel]

While ideally most places would like to verify that your poster has been hung up, I don't routinely see verification that somebody is there standing next to it.

If somebody from your team is going they can hang it up and 'receive credit' for it. Go if you actually want to go to the meeting. It'd be cool as a MS2 to have research to present at a national conference, IMO.

Thanks! I just wasn't sure what the policy is with the verification process at conferences (you can tell i'm inexperienced). Just didn't want to get into trouble for not being there standing next to it.

 

[Wordead]

probably just doesnt want to pay

 

[evilbooyaa]

probably just doesnt want to pay

Usually that's the 'hidden' answer that the PI won't come out and tell you, assuming the PI would be on the hook for getting you to the meeting.

 

[DNC127]

Nobody every checks whether you are there or not. You literally could not even show or hang your poster and nobody would know

 

[IMreshopeful]

Depends on the size of the conference. Some of the larger specialty conferences have 20,000 people or more who attending and hundreds of posters. I have been to a couple and put up some case posters - a few people came by out of academic interest but nobody otherwise cared in the slightest. I doubt anyone would care in that instance if you actually show up.

Now, if it’s a very small conference, absolutely yes someone might notice. I don’t think it would be something that causes blacklisting however.

If you want to go to the conference and you can get funds to go you should. Sometimes it is expensive for medical students to travel to these conferences and I wouldn’t do it unless there’s funding personally, but it does help you for your CV when you are applying for residencies.

 

[mrbreakfast]

I went to a conference (in a swanky locale) where probably 75% of the posters had no one stand by them at any point. Some conferences are very expensive for students to attend.

You can have someone in your group hang your posters for you. I understand the desire to be validated and keep your first poster (I did the same) but once you start publishing papers as a med student, it suddenly makes a lot more (financial) sense to never see your poster with your own eyes and let it get tossed after the conference with the rest.

 

[Donald Juan]

I'm interested in if people think the OP could list this as a poster on their ERAS application if they didn't go. I was always under the impression that posters you don't actually present wouldn't count.

 

[evilbooyaa]

I'm interested in if people think the OP could list this as a poster on their ERAS application if they didn't go. I was always under the impression that posters you don't actually present wouldn't count.

Honestly, the answer is that it shouldn't but nobody is going to know for ERAS. If your poster gets hung up then I'd count it even if you couldn't go to the meeting.

 

[Merely]

I'm interested in if people think the OP could list this as a poster on their ERAS application if they didn't go. I was always under the impression that posters you don't actually present wouldn't count.

This question has been asked and answered many times. I will answer it for the millionth time. You CAN list it as a poster, oral presentation, etc. if it was your project and you were an author on the project regardless of whether or not you went as long as someone from your team went and presented it. If it was poster you put under poster section if it was oral presentation you put under that section. It doesn’t matter if you actually were the one that presented as long as your work actually got presented then you get credit for it. I along with many other people did this for ERAS and things went very smoothly. Good luck.

 

[Donald Juan]

This question has been asked and answered many times. I will answer it for the millionth time. You CAN list it as a poster, oral presentation, etc. if it was your project and you were an author on the project regardless of whether or not you went as long as someone from your team went and presented it. If it was poster you put under poster section if it was oral presentation you put under that section. It doesn’t matter if you actually were the one that presented as long as your work actually got presented then you get credit for it. I along with many other people did this for ERAS and things went very smoothly. Good luck.

Just because you give it the answer you want, doesn't mean you are correct. I definitely don't think you should list an oral presentation that someone else presented. Just because you did this and got away with it doesn't mean it's what you are supposed to do. Good luck.

 

[mrbreakfast]

When I was submitting ERAS, I read many posts on SDN as well as ERAS guidelines from various schools I found online. I didn't find anything that said I could (other than people saying you could because they did themselves) but I found guidelines somewhere that said you should not list any posters you didn't personally present, so I didn't.

That being said, I think the majority of students do this. I know people who listed posters they were like 7th author on and probably had no idea what they were about. I also had no qualms about not listing some of the posters because I ended up listing the papers those posters became instead. So, OP, do whatever you think is right.

I definitely wouldn't list an oral presentation you didn't give. That covers the speech preparation which you didn't do. I would list an abstract accepted as an oral presentation that was given by someone else as a poster.

 

[MSTPlease]

Just because you give it the answer you want, doesn't mean you are correct. I definitely don't think you should list an oral presentation that someone else presented. Just because you did this and got away with it doesn't mean it's what you are supposed to do. Good luck.

Just because you think you are right doesn't mean you are. By your logic, a PI cannot put on their CV any work presented at a conference by their trainees. Similarly if a paper gets published and you didn't physically print the article and distribute it yourself, should it not go on your CV?

If your name is on the work, you get to take your share of the credit. That's why the author list is ordered the way it is. Just like my PI takes his share of credit by being the final author listed for my work and everyone else in the lab's work, I took my share of credit as 2nd author for the contributions that led to my lab mate getting to publish in journals and present at various conferences and he took his share of credit as 2nd author for the contributions that led to my work being published and presented at various conferences.

This has nothing to do with ERAS. This is how research CVs work.

 

[NotaCop]

This question has been asked and answered many times. I will answer it for the millionth time. You CAN list it as a poster, oral presentation, etc. if it was your project and you were an author on the project regardless of whether or not you went as long as someone from your team went and presented it. If it was poster you put under poster section if it was oral presentation you put under that section. It doesn’t matter if you actually were the one that presented as long as your work actually got presented then you get credit for it. I along with many other people did this for ERAS and things went very smoothly. Good luck.

Incorrect. You got away with it sure, as would anybody, but that does not mean it is proper form. I’ve lied many times and gotten away with it but does not mean I was right to do so.

This type of item goes under “peer reviewed unpublished abstracts” or something similar on your cv. If you didn’t give the presentation, you only get credit for the abstract submission. Poster/oral presentations you gave yourself go under those named headings. Published abstracts associated go under “peer reviewed published abstracts”. Publications go under their relevant headings. With these categories, most if not
all presentations are accounted for. The “PRUA” heading is essentially a catch all for any presentation with your name on it that you did not show up and present yourself. Yes, even if you did all the work and made all the slides and then fell ill with cholera the day before the conference, it still goes here.

Your reader is trained to think that poster/oral presentations were given by you... that’s the status quo in our fields. Thus, they see an entry here and that is what they believe. They won’t question it. By simply putting that entry here, you are knowingly misleading the reader. This is working to your advantage, and therefore to other applicants’ detriment. This is not proper form.

 

[Merely]

Just because you give it the answer you want, doesn't mean you are correct. I definitely don't think you should list an oral presentation that someone else presented. Just because you did this and got away with it doesn't mean it's what you are supposed to do. Good luck.

You ask a question, get a reasonable answer, then try to argue about the answer given..I’m telling you what several PIs around here have told me along with everyone I know at my school. If you want to do something different please be my guest..

 

[MSTPlease]

Incorrect. You got away with it sure, as would anybody, but that does not mean it is proper form. I’ve lied many times and gotten away with it but does not mean I was right to do so.

This type of item goes under “peer reviewed unpublished abstracts” or something similar on your cv. If you didn’t give the presentation, you only get credit for the abstract submission. Poster/oral presentations you gave yourself go under those named headings. Published abstracts associated go under “peer reviewed published abstracts”. Publications go under their relevant headings. With these categories, most if not
all presentations are accounted for. The “PRUA” heading is essentially a catch all for any presentation with your name on it that you did not show up and present yourself. Yes, even if you did all the work and made all the slides and then fell ill with cholera the day before the conference, it still goes here.

Your reader is trained to think that poster/oral presentations were given by you... that’s the status quo in our fields. Thus, they see an entry here and that is what they believe. They won’t question it. By simply putting that entry here, you are knowingly misleading the reader. This is working to your advantage, and therefore to other applicants’ detriment. This is not proper form.

The department I did my PhD in had a nearly weekly outside speaker come in and they always sent out the person's CV. I'm not sure I've ever seen this section as technically, any abstract submitted and rejected by a conference is a "peer reviewed unpublished abstract." It's like listing manuscripts in preparation or even submitted, it's meaningless. Whether the work was accepted for a poster vs a talk or rejected is a meaningful distinction though, regardless of whether you personally were the one there.

When you submit work to a conference, *the work* is what is being evaluated, not the submitter, not the poster/talk itself, and not the person who will be standing next to the poster/on stage. If you're the middle author, but you go in place of your lab mate to stand next to the poster, that doesn't change the fact that the work was accepted for a poster presentation and that the first author did the bulk of the work. That's why you don't just list the name of the conference. You have to list the authors so that people can see whether or not it was chiefly your work. No one cares whether or not you or someone else stood next to the poster, they care whether or not the work was deemed good enough for a talk and how big of a role you had in it.

As I referenced above, just as "publications" in the research section doesn't literally mean "I personally ran the printing press and mailed this out to thousands of people" "poster presentations" in the research section doesn't literally mean "posters I stood next to"

 

[Donald Juan]

Just because you think you are right doesn't mean you are. By your logic, a PI cannot put on their CV any work presented at a conference by their trainees. Similarly if a paper gets published and you didn't physically print the article and distribute it yourself, should it not go on your CV?

If your name is on the work, you get to take your share of the credit. That's why the author list is ordered the way it is. Just like my PI takes his share of credit by being the final author listed for my work and everyone else in the lab's work, I took my share of credit as 2nd author for the contributions that led to my lab mate getting to publish in journals and present at various conferences and he took his share of credit as 2nd author for the contributions that led to my work being published and presented at various conferences.

This has nothing to do with ERAS. This is how research CVs work.

Do your PIs really list a poster presentation by a med student at a local university conference on their CV? I don't know anyone who wouldn't roll their eyes at that.

 

[Donald Juan]

You ask a question, get a reasonable answer, then try to argue about the answer given..I’m telling you what several PIs around here have told me along with everyone I know at my school. If you want to do something different please be my guest..

There was no reasonable answer. You say it's been asked a million times here, and acted like it was some hardened fact. When this conversation comes up here it is always controversial, and many people here with more knowledge base say it is not appropriate to list things as presentations when you didn't give it. I'm sorry I didn't just bow down to your superior knowledge.

 

[Merely]

There was no reasonable answer. You say it's been asked a million times here, and acted like it was some hardened fact. When this conversation comes up here it is always controversial, and many people here with more knowledge base say it is not appropriate to list things as presentations when you didn't give it. I'm sorry I didn't just bow down to your superior knowledge.

Ok, don’t listen to us and don’t list things on ERAS that you worked on but didn’t present. The only person you’re hurting is yourself while helping people like me. Have fun, bud.

 

[NotaCop]

You can list it dude. Just don’t falsely claim you presented something when you actually did not

 

[Merely]

You can list it dude. Just don’t falsely claim you presented something when you actually did not

I did 95% of the work on a project, I get it accepted to a meeting as an oral presentation, the day before the meeting I’m sick so my second author has to go present it for me. You think I’m falsely taking credit for my presentation? Gtfo

 

[NotaCop]

I did 95% of the work on a project, I get it accepted to a meeting as an oral presentation, the day before the meeting I’m sick so my second author has to go present it for me. You think I’m falsely taking credit for my presentation? Gtfo

I’ve been there too. I made every single slide. It’s not in my orals section. That’s all I’m sayin

Publish it and take your credit there

 

[Dwan]

If your name is on the work, you get credit for it regardless if you presented it or not. This is common sense to anyone who's had serious involvement in academics. There's a reason you can't just take the other 5 co-authors and the PI off the author list even if you're the only presenter and you designed 100% of the presentation - they get credit for the presentation and are allowed to list the work on their CVs, due to their contributions to the research.

 

[Lawpy]

Just because you think you are right doesn't mean you are. By your logic, a PI cannot put on their CV any work presented at a conference by their trainees. Similarly if a paper gets published and you didn't physically print the article and distribute it yourself, should it not go on your CV?

If your name is on the work, you get to take your share of the credit. That's why the author list is ordered the way it is. Just like my PI takes his share of credit by being the final author listed for my work and everyone else in the lab's work, I took my share of credit as 2nd author for the contributions that led to my lab mate getting to publish in journals and present at various conferences and he took his share of credit as 2nd author for the contributions that led to my work being published and presented at various conferences.

This has nothing to do with ERAS. This is how research CVs work.

If your name is on the work, you get credit for it regardless if you presented it or not. This is common sense to anyone who's had serious involvement in academics. There's a reason you can't just take the other 5 co-authors and the PI off the author list even if you're the only presenter and you designed 100% of the presentation - they get credit for the presentation and are allowed to list the work on their CVs, due to their contributions to the research.

This is what I was thinking but the thread ended up confusing me. Thanks for the insights

 

[MSTPlease]

Do your PIs really list a poster presentation by a med student at a local university conference on their CV? I don't know anyone who wouldn't roll their eyes at that.

Probably not, but they do list their PhD students' presentations at the top international conference in their field. That being said, if they wanted to, they could.

 

[MSTPlease]

You can list it dude. Just don’t falsely claim you presented something when you actually did not

Nowhere do I claim I physically presented it because everyone knows the section is for work that has been presented which it was. You aren't the one who actually published the paper. Do you still list it as a publication or does the person who works at the journal list it as one of their publications instead?

 

[Melanogaster]

I'm interested in if people think the OP could list this as a poster on their ERAS application if they didn't go. I was always under the impression that posters you don't actually present wouldn't count.

I asked my school's radiology PD and they said list it. If your name is on the poster they said it counts as a presentation even if you didn't go.

 

[MSTPlease]

There was no reasonable answer. You say it's been asked a million times here, and acted like it was some hardened fact. When this conversation comes up here it is always controversial, and many people here with more knowledge base say it is not appropriate to list things as presentations when you didn't give it. I'm sorry I didn't just bow down to your superior knowledge.

I've yet to see the bolded part be true

 

[TheBoneDoctah]

I also think there is a huge difference between academic researchers and medical students trying to get "research" for their residency apps. Real researchers aren't going to worry about listing most poster presentations because they have bigger fish to fry with real papers, whereas medical students who don't have 50 page CVs with pubs will list poster presentations (even if they didn't present them). How do you think the average abstracts section on NRMP is like 5-6 for most specialties (15+ for others). You can't tell me that the average medical student had 5 abstracts and presented at 5 conferences.

Overall, I think the biggest thing here is if asked at an interview, you just tell the truth (obviously). I think this is being overthought. Just list it...if it comes up, tell the truth. When I apply, I am listing everything I worked on because I put many hours into these projects that I was 2nd/3rd author on and didn't present. However, my time was still needed for completion and acceptance of the poster.