Is it ok to recycle sub-i presentations?

[plasticsday1]

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Referring to those 30-min long presentations each rotating sub-i has to give at every rotation's grand rounds. Generic advice seems to be that no presentation should be recycled because programs talk to each other, and also will write about the presentation in rec letters, so don't give them any reason to appear lazy. However, anecdotally, most of the residents and attendings I've personally talked to said they recycled when they were sub-Is. Advice? I'll be doing a total of 4 sub-Is and it seems crazy to prepare four different presentations. But maybe that's just the way things have become with how much more competitive everything is now compared to even just a few years before? Thanks.

 

[MSTP18]

I used the same presentation at both of my aways (My #1/#2 choices) and matched my #1. On the other hand, the program vs. applicant dynamics in the path match process compared the plastics match process probably couldn't be more different...

 

[plasticsday1]

Appreciate the response. Anyone from a surgical subspecialty have any insight?

 

[mimelim]

Referring to those 30-min long presentations each rotating sub-i has to give at every rotation's grand rounds. Generic advice seems to be that no presentation should be recycled because programs talk to each other, and also will write about the presentation in rec letters, so don't give them any reason to appear lazy. However, anecdotally, most of the residents and attendings I've personally talked to said they recycled when they were sub-Is. Advice? I'll be doing a total of 4 sub-Is and it seems crazy to prepare four different presentations. But maybe that's just the way things have become with how much more competitive everything is now compared to even just a few years before? Thanks.

I disagree that it is 'crazy' to prepare four different presentations over the course of 4 months. In our residency I have to give the equivalent of one of those presentations 2-3 times a month. If nothing else, it is another topic that you are learning about in detail, which is what you should be doing as a medical student. Also, keep in mind that not every residency/away rotation is going to have you do a formal presentation and certainly not every one of them is going to be a big deal if you do need to present. It isn't like there is a cookbook on how to run away rotations.

I don't think that it is crazy to reuse/refine/improve old presentations. Virtually everyone in academics does it to a certain extent. But, there is a big difference between me presenting on a topic where the objective is for people to learn from what I'm saying and a medical student who is presenting to impress people and demonstrate knowledge accrual.

 

[evilbooyaa]

When I presented as a sub-I, I presented about the research year I had taken and the research I had done within the field. Therefore, as my research year contents could not have changed, my presentations were obligatorily all the same or at the very least very similar.

I don't think it's unreasonable to pick a thing you're most passionate about (have some connection to it if possible, like you did research in it since you're plastics) and do a similar presentation (again, if asked to do one)

 

[doyouhaveaflag]

Three of my four SubIs suggested I present about a case I’d seen at that program during the rotation, so I didn’t recycle any. I didn’t find it to be too bad to make new ones. The fourth subI didn’t ask for one.

 

[FistLength]

I re-used mine 3 times and tweaked/updated it every time after getting feedback until it was a polished piece of work (the residents themselves asked to keep it). Talk to the residents some time before you present, they know what the attendings like to see.

 

[Donald Juan]

I reused mine because I had a topic that I felt was a pretty unique and interesting. If I had a boring topic on the first one I would have chose a new one on the other rotations.

 

[MSTP18]

Seeing the other responses I feel like I should add that during my first away there happened to be a case that was super related to my PhD work so the attending was like "obviously you should talk about this case and your work" and then the 2nd one suggested I either talk about my research or pick another topic related to the field so I just recycled the first one since it checked off both boxes.