Author: Hornsby Hospital (Sydney, Australia) Alex Chung, MD

My name is Alex Chung, an intern at Hornsby Hospital (Sydney, Australia). I had the pleasure of attending the workshop “Great Scientific Presentations and e-Posters" run by InnovaRad (I-Chen Tsai, MD, PhD and Hsin-Yu Tsai, MD) in August 2017.

How to make effective posters and presentations?

In Australia, clinicians often get involved in research relatively early on in their careers. It is therefore crucial for me to get a head-start in acquiring knowledge on how to make effective posters and presentations.

I am hoping to combine research with my future clinical career and felt that this workshop would be particularly important for me. This proved to be correct and I acquired a significant amount of new knowledge throughout the space of one day.

There are many benefits to this workshop. I will elaborate on some of the points below.

Combined theory with actual practice

Firstly, the workshop effectively combined theory with actual practice.

This was thanks to a helpful combination of lecture time and practice time throughout the day. During the morning session, Dr I-Chen Tsai explained clearly the principles behind making an effective presentation (e.g. how to design a title page, which font to use, which colour to use for the background).

Brought theory to life

I enjoyed the way Dr Tsai later applied the principles to the slides made by each student. It is evident that Dr Tsai had spent an enormous amount of time to understand the topic of each student’s presentation and thought carefully about how to present the topic in a more effective way.

I particularly appreciated this, as this helped each student to better understand how they could personally apply the principles that were taught throughout the day. This really brought theory to life and helped each of us to make the knowledge our own.

Assisting instructor has solid knowledge base

During the practice session later on in the day, I was able to think critically about how to apply these principles to my own slides and discussed the results with the instructors.

Secondly, I was impressed by the knowledge of all the instructors. They were able to identify weaknesses in my PowerPoint slides and provide constructive suggestions on ways to improve them.

One example was when I was working on improving my title page during the practice session in the middle of the day. I felt that something was not quite right with the title page but could not put my finger on what exactly was wrong. The assisting instructor pointed out that the colour I used for the title font was too bright, and suggested a more mellow colour.

The difference was immediately noticeable. It was clear that they all had a solid knowledge base and were also able to communicate in a way that was very easy to understand.

Promote medical education and improve the skills of the students

Thirdly, I was inspired by the passion of all the instructors present. It was obvious that they believed deeply in promoting medical education and improving the skills of the students.

Dr I-Chen Tsai took time to chat to each student and get to know them (not just as clinicians, but also as people). The students who attended gained valuable knowledge not just about make presentations, but also a lot of wisdom about working in a clinical environment and how to develop their medical careers.

Personally, I am an intern that had just started work in a clinical environment. There are still many challenges that lie ahead in my future career. I will remember the wisdom Dr Tsai shared with us throughout the workshop throughout different stages of my future career.

This will no doubt help me to be a better-rounded clinician and person. I am confident that through the good work of people like Dr I-Chen Tsai, the quality of the clinicians (and therefore medical care) of Taiwan will be greatly improved.

High quality surrounding environment

Fourthly, the environment of the workshop was of a very high quality. It was very spacious – there was plenty of room for all the students and the instructors.

There was stable wireless internet connection throughout the day. The food and drinks provided were delicious. Some people may think that the surrounding environment is not important, but I believe that it is a significant factor.

（橙編按：的確，您觀察得很棒。雖然接下來的比喻有點跳躍，但這個概念的確是從癌症治療來的：不管治療再怎麼正確有效，如果病房狹窄、吵雜、造成壓力與睡眠不足，患者難受，就沒辦法在治療上堅持與專注，甚至連所謂的 best supportive care 都比不上，這樣很可惜。核心內容之外，環境與相關物資的支持，是必要的。）

Because I was comfortable throughout the entire day, it was easy to think clearly. There was a lot of critical thinking involved during the workshop. I was constantly trying to think how to apply the newly-learned principles to my own presentation. The comfortable environment greatly assisted me in doing that.

Better grasp of how to make effective presentations

Fifthly, I gained new knowledge on how to use the PowerPoint software and various other computer knowledge. Before the workshop, I had only ever used basic functions in PowerPoint.

Now, I have a much better grasp of how to make effective pie charts/bar graphs, how to adjust brightness of images, how to adjust sizes of arrows, how to use animation effectively etc. I also appreciated getting to know about 123RF and will continue to use this website when making future presentations.

I will be making an oral presentation/poster at the “Australia Society of Obstetric Medicine of Australia and New Zealand and Australasian Diabetes in Pregnancy Society Joint Scientific Meeting 2017″ in October this year. This will be an opportunity to put into practice the knowledge gained during this workshop.

Thanks to the guidance of the instructors, I now feel more confident about the upcoming presentation and feel that I will be able to make a poster/oral presentation that will be clear and engaging for the audience.

A great organization run by people who are passionate about medical education

In conclusion, I would highly recommend the workshop “Great Scientific Presentations and e-Posters" to everyone in the medical community.

I am glad that I attended this course at an early stage of my career. I would recommend that all interns also attend this course – it would help them to improve their skills in making presentations and posters at an early stage of their careers.

This would be great for their future development. I plan to attend other future courses run by InnovaRad. This is clearly a great organization run by people who are passionate about medical education.

Thank you for all your amazing work! I hope to see you all again very soon!

（橙編按：期待聽到您的好消息，在更大的舞台上發光！加油！）

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