End of Rotation Presentation

[Tekbright510]

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Hey all, I will be giving a 30 min presentation to the department at the end of my current rotation. I'm a MS3 and interested in applying to Rad Onc.

In your experience, what makes one of these med student presentations good/memorable? What makes one of these not so good/bad? Any advice on how to go about selecting a topic?

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed about the whole thing. Any advice is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

 

[Cancerdancer]

I usually advise students to pick a narrow topic that they can master at a depth greater than what residents (and probably faculty) will know. This can either take the form of a review of a rare disease or a focused question within a more common disease. Either way, try to present an in-depth, comprehensive look at a narrow topic that will provide value to your audience.
Also, avoid what I view as a mistake...presenting as you've seen peds or internal medicine cases presented, with 3 slides of ROS, Fam Hx, Soc Hx etc. You're not using that info to build a differential, so skip it. OK to start with an interesting case that piqued your interest, but get to the meat of the presentation quickly...

 

[Gfunk6]

Also, it is very important for you to run your presentation by a faculty member to give it the once over.

If you can somehow link your Rad Onc related research with a case that you've seen (particularly in the department that you are rotating in), that would be optimal.

 

[CyberKnife19]

I completely agree with the comments above and would add a couple things...

1. This should go without saying, but put a lot of thought and effort into your talk. Your presentation will be the lasting impression that you leave on the chair, attendings and residents at the end of your rotation so you obviously want to end on a positive note. There is nothing more unimpressive than the medical student who is cramming to finish his/her talk during the last week after knowing that they have four weeks to prepare it.

2. This should also go without saying, but practice your talk. The best way to tune out on audience is to read verbatim from your slides. I am not saying that you have to memorize every slide, but be familiar with enough of your talk that you can spend the majority of the time speaking to the audience as opposed to reading from the screen. Furthermore, this acutally demonstrates that you at least somewhat understand what you are talking about as opposed to regurgitating the information on your slides.

Best of luck and congrats on choosing the best field in medicine! 👍

 

[RadSki]

I would recommend asking a resident or attending that you have gotten to know to look over the talk with you a few days in advance. When I did this (many moons ago) I sat down with the peds attending to look over my rhabdomyosarcoma talk. When I presented, I was confident I was hitting all the key points.

 

[ramsesthenice]

The key word is focused. I think a huge thing you can show is that you can use evidence from the literature to make your point. Pick a very specific question. Instead of radiation in prostate cancer think more like adjacent radiation for treatment of pathologically advanced cancer after prostatectomy. The best topics for you will have good but limited data from no more than 2-3 rct's with concordant results. That way you can cover it all and make a good argument. And don't overlook the small things. If you have quality of life or toxicity data know what grade 2vs 3 translates to. Have fun with this. It really is an opportunity to show off. Like they said above practice with residents and an attending if you can.

 

[ramsesthenice]

Adjuvent radiation, not adjacent. Gotta love auto correct 🙂

 

[Palex80]

Talk about target volume definition and dose-finding in esthesioneuroblastoma.
That will make your audience listen.

😍😍😍