Learning how to present

[calflowergirl]

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Does anyone know any resources available that will teach/guide you on how to present to attendings. My preceptor has been so busy this year and I never got to present to him.
If you can give me some advice I'd really appreciate.

Thanks!

 

[Va-Jay-Jay]

Does anyone know any resources available that will teach/guide you on how to present to attendings. My preceptor has been so busy this year and I never got to present to him.
If you can give me some advice I'd really appreciate.

Thanks!

Your best resource for this will be asking for help from residents and 4th year med students. You can always ask for feedback from attendings, but they're usually too busy to give you helpful advice. At the beginning of third year, the learning curve is steep, and if you make an effort to learn how to present, you'll be way ahead of the game regardless of what experience you have with your preceptor.

 

[wook]

Your best resource for this will be asking for help from residents and 4th year med students. You can always ask for feedback from attendings, but they're usually too busy to give you helpful advice. At the beginning of third year, the learning curve is steep, and if you make an effort to learn how to present, you'll be way ahead of the game regardless of what experience you have with your preceptor.

Agree, OP may want to try and present a case or two to different residents/4th years to get into the groove. Be willing to accept constructive criticism, it will make you better at presenting. Also, OP is taking the initiative (ie self-motivated) which I wish I had done more.


Wook

 

[deleted87716]

Does anyone know any resources available that will teach/guide you on how to present to attendings.

Before my third year of med school, I read a book called The Wards: An Introduction to Clinical Clerkships, which includes a chapter dealing with oral presentations. I found it very helpful.

You can also look here and here.

 

[KidDr]

Agree, OP may want to try and present a case or two to different residents/4th years to get into the groove. Be willing to accept constructive criticism, it will make you better at presenting. Also, OP is taking the initiative (ie self-motivated) which I wish I had done more.


Wook

It's definitely important to be willing to accept constructive feedback. And realize too that each speciality, and even each attending, will likely have their own nuanced way that they like things presented. This can be very frustrating as a 3rd year and you can spend a lot of time getting mad about it (I mean this in the generic "you," not you specifically...I don't know what your experience will be). Instead I'd encourage you to just go with it and learn from it. This is something you'll have to get used to all throughout med school and residency, and if you can become skilled at tweaking your presentations to fit what an attending/resident wants, you'll go far. The best way to do this is to become a very very good listener--on the 1st day of each new rotation pay really close attention to how your interns/residents present to the attendings, and take notes--and then copy what they do. After a couple rotations, if you listen well, this will get easier and easier.

 

[Va-Jay-Jay]

It's definitely important to be willing to accept constructive feedback.

I agree completely. And I have to keep reminding myself to define "constructive feedback" as loosely as possible. And when some resident or attending who is having a bad day feels the need to unload on me, sometimes accepting it just means biting my tongue or mainting that thoughtful and appreciative look on my face. We all develop a thicker skin, sooner or later, during our training.

 

[njbmd]

Does anyone know any resources available that will teach/guide you on how to present to attendings. My preceptor has been so busy this year and I never got to present to him.
If you can give me some advice I'd really appreciate.

Thanks!

Hi there,
Your presentations will vary from specialty to specialty and under different circumstances. There are the longer formal presentations and the teaching rounds presentations where attendings are usually present.

A good guideline for the formal presentation is to look at the Case Reports from Massachusetts General Hospital that can be found in every issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. These presentations are superbly done and very complete.

If you are presenting on teaching rounds, you want to give a brief introduction: This is Mr so and so who is a 50-year-old gentleman on hospital day 3 admitted through the emergency department where he presented with acute onset abdominal pain etc...

Again, there are different guidelines for different circumstances. As a rule, surgery attendings want to hear less and medicine attendings want to here more including a complete differential diagnosis. If you are presenting an ICU, a systems by systems presentation is a good guideline.

Learning to present is a great skill to have and you will get loads of practice during third and fourth year. By the time you graduate, you will be a pro. This is also good because your daily notes should somewhat mirror your presentations too.

There is a brief outline of presenting to both housestaff and to attendings in the little book called "How to be a truly EXCELLENT Junior Medical Student" by Robert J. Lederman, MD. This book contains thousands of pearls that will help you shine on any rotation. It costs about $7 and will easily fit in your lab coat pocket.

Good luck!
njbmd 🙂