Computer generated transcript

Warning!
The following transcript was generated automatically from the content and has not been checked or corrected manually.

Hello, everyone. My name is Doctor Mohammed Moffat. It's a tremendous honor to be invited by the Walter than the Neurological Society in the UK to give you a lecture about how to present your work at conferences. This is part of the neurosurgery, student research, teaching and portfolio course, and I hope you enjoy the journey. During this lecture, I will be starting telling you about how conferences work, how they are structured and organized. I will be telling you about differences between oral presentation. In contrast to poster presentation. Share some tips with you on how to present at conferences from very basic to advance considerations that you might have share more tips about how to organize and construct your abstract for submission for poster or oral presentation or both. And what are the similarities and differences between virtual compared to face to face conferences these days? Some of them are actually hybrid. What do judges look for in abstract submission and presentation? This is when you want your work to be accepted to be presented at those conferences. I will be telling you about funding for research. I know that this is a barrier for medical student to find funding to go and attend those conferences. And this depends on the medical school that you are attending. Or the dinner is that you are there for your medical training, uh, telling you about prices at conferences and the importance of them for your portfolio for neurosurgery or core search called training at national, regional and international levels, and telling you a little bit about abstracts that can be presented at conferences, the posters, the oral presentation and that can also be published in different journals and share a little bit of experience about different conferences and how to present at them. Let's get it started. What is a conference? Basically, a conference is made of a group of people that they have a common interest. They are either interested in neurosurgery, or they might be interested in a specific part of the neurosurgery as a pituitary, neurosurgery or functional neurosurgery, vascular neurosurgery. Or they can be interested about a stroke that can involve neurosurgeons, neurologists, medical students, uh, junior doctors. They will go to a place they will gather at the place. They will share their information about their work, their research, their experience. They will cross ideas. They will try to banks off ideas saying that this is the work that I'm doing. Is I Am I on the right path? What? What you guys thinking about? They would engage in some activities. This can be some workshops training. Uh, this can be some social events, Uh, and they will try to gain something out of those experience conferences can last from literally an afternoon to a few days. I've attended some conferences that were just half a day and some conferences that were entire week, depending on what is the size of the conference. And what is the scope of that conference? Uh, it can be from a few people, too few 100 people, uh, they would the organizers who will try to organize those conferences. Sometimes I organize those conferences, they will really set the agenda at least a few months in advance or sometimes years in advance, and try to advertise those events so people can start participating on that. The importance of it is that if you want to attend the conference next year, you need to look up from from this year, so you need to be well prepared in advance. Usually they have deadlines that you need to submit your work. It can be anything from a few weeks before to even six months or 789 months before that, that this is a great opportunity for everyone, especially medical student, junior doctors and people in training to hear the latest development from people who actually propel the field from people who are working. And it felt so going there and listening to them and seeing them firsthand. This is a tremendous opportunity you can network from those people, See that how they work hard to get to where they are, very much you can actually go and start collaborations. You can go and send the conference and see that, uh, you see someone that, uh, you come across someone that has a similar interest to you, what the research that you are doing from a different country from a different scenery from different medical school and start collaboration with them. And also you can come back inspired with some new ideas. Sometimes you go to a conference and see some results presented about a different technique in your surgery about a new finding about it, audit and you can come back and say that I can do it in my own medical school. I can do it in my ordinary or I can have take that angle for my debt research that you never thought about it before. For example, depending on the conference I mentioned, it can be organized from a few hours to few days, but usually it involves registration. So this is before even. And this isn't the different than the registration that actually you send your abstract. So is the registration. On the day some people send their abstracts and sometimes they can't attend. They want to take attendance. Who is going there? It can be open talk or opening ceremony, usually by the conference organizers or present of that society. For example, it can be, uh, society of British, uh, surgeons, or you're going to talk about it in more detail. There are some scheduled talk about it, so there can be different themes in conference. For example, it can be a morning theme about tumor afternoon about trauma next day about vascular, spine and education. Um, uh, depending on the scope of that conference, there can be some poster presentation sessions which is actually squeeze into those afternoons, or it can be a half a day dedicated for those post representation that people can go and talk to presenters. There are usually workshop and activities. It can be hands on workshops or activities involved with different people, sometimes by sponsors. Actually, uh, that found that conference and that would be usually post conference events can be formal. Night can be a dinner that people can go and engage in more social activities. There is a difference between oral and poster presentation at conferences. There are both pros and comes. I usually recommend to my students and my colleagues that apply for both, uh, and see that which one you can get sometimes if you can get a post representation, only you can just go and present posters. Sometimes you get oral presentation, and sometimes you get both of them. Let's start talking about post representation. So for a poster presentation, you need to design a poster you need to go and actually have an abstract. There are different Softwares. Uh, there are different Softwares that you can use. You can even design on a a power point template. You need to prepare so it should be visually aesthetic. Uh, when you present when you design that poster, you need to go and print that poster and physically hold carry it with you to that conference. There are these days e posters that you can send to the conference organizers, and you can present, uh, electronically at conference. When you are presenting a poster, you are interacting with individuals. People come to your posters again. This can be face to face or virtual. People will attend, and you will have the opportunity for a 121. Talk with that people. People will read your work at their own pace at their own time so they can spend a few times a few minutes on abstract and go and read about your results. Um, and you you need to let the poster to do most of the talking. So because there can be that you are talking to an individual at the poster session and someone else is standing there and then they will read your poster and they will just have a small chat with you and move on. That is the poster bit for overall presentation. You need to design a power point slide, so you need to design your slides. It can be again, face to face or virtual. Uh, you will have limited time compared to poster presentation. That can be entire afternoon, and you can stand there or be at your poster virtual event. Usually, the talks are 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes. Getting a talk at the conference is more competitive because of the limitation of time that people have. There might be, for example, hundreds poster 100 post poster presented, whereas compared to 10 talks, so it makes it more competitive. You don't have that 1 to 1 interactions. You might get one or two questions at the end. People might come afterwards and ask you some more questions, but you don't have that opportunity to do 1 to 1 interaction, and you need to stand in front of audience and present. And if that if you are enjoying that, that's a very good opportunity. And there are things that will look good, uh, help you to develop your skills from both post representation and, uh, oral presentation. So let's get to 101 of how to present at a conference. First of all you need to get some data. Well, when you want to go to present at a conference, why conference organizers need to give you an opportunity to present because you have some data. This can be data that from your research experience it can be just a summer project or you have done a different degree and you got some data. It can be that research that you've done on Wednesday afternoons as part of your degree. You had a couple of days, Uh, I went to the lab and did some research or you did some surveys online, for example, or you were doing along your degree. It can be part of your s S C a student selected component that you did, uh, during your medical training. And now you want to present that it can be part of your intergrated degree, your undergraduate inter kelated degree, your masters, or even PhD interpellation. Or it can be systematic review and meta analysis that you can do along the year while you are studying your medical degree. So, first of all, you need to get some data, so get that sorted, go. And if you have some contacts, go and send emails. Go and find the the the area that you are interested. Find people at your medical school. If the area that you are interested in that present at your medical school find the neurosurgeon, find the neurologist from different medical schools from different Dean Aries and approach them say that I'm interested in doing some research. Can you please give me some opportunities? Uh, there might come back to you with some emails. There might not reply you. They are very busy people. Understandably, uh, send them another email a week after two weeks later. If they don't try to find another colleague who have similar interests to them and email them Uh, usually very short email. Keep your emails very short. Uh, neurosurgeons or attendings or consultants? They are busy people. So how introduced yourself say that What? What you want to do? What is your background? You can even attach your CV. Say that. Can I please have some opportunity to do research and specify that? Do you want to do this research during summer? Do you want to do this research for example, as part of your sec, do you want to do this research as part of your interc elations Or do you want to do it as online, such as systematic Revere? Metallics is now. Once you have those data, you need to sit down and analyse those data. This can be from patient data. Uh, different requirements it can be from animal studies. Uh, it can be from systematic reviews and meta analysis. You need to analyze the those data and see that What? The data is telling you what you got. What is the take home message of that? Now, with the help of your mentors, try to identify the right conferences for for yourself. So when you are analyzing those data or even beforehand when you are actually acquiring data, tell your supervisor that I want to present this at some conferences, If that's possible, Uh, your mentor hopefully will help you with that Keep and I do some online searching and find the conferences that will suit you. What you need to take into account when you want to present at a conference. Is that first of all, what is the time of that conference? Is it one week before your exams? Perhaps that's not the best idea right. Uh, is it some time that you have, uh, some, for example? Uh, commitments? That's not a good idea How long that would take. Is it just one afternoon? Or you need to dedicate your entire week to that. For example, if you have a part time job, that's considerations that you need to take into account. Where is the location of that conference? Do you Can you just, uh, take a bus to that conference walk to that conference or you need to take a flight, for example? You need to go quite internationally. You need to go to a different city, and it has its own considerations. These are just 101 of the how to present at conferences. I know that some people might have some experiences, but some people listening to this lecture they might be their first time. They want to present at a conference. And also, when you are, you want to register that conference. First of all, the, uh, submit your abstract. Are you eligible for that conference? Sometimes some conferences are open to medical students, junior doctors, registrars, special training registrars and consultant everyone. Sometimes some conferences are specifically designed for medical students. So if you are a foundation doctor, you might not be able to apply to that conference. Sometimes the conferences is not open to medical student. It just, for example, open to the member of that specific society. So identify whether you are eligible or not. And the barrier that we talked about, how much is the registration fee if you got accepted, right. Can you, uh, pay that? Can you afford that? Sometimes some conferences have some bursaries and scholarships. Your medical school might be able to help that, but these are all the considerations that you want to have that. Now, uh, there is something that I want to tell you that sometimes you can go to conference without necessarily having the obligation of presenting at that conference. So, uh, you can just apply for that conference as a listener. As an attendee, we don't have in that, so that's another consideration. But if you want to present, then you send your abstract and you usually wait until you hear back from them from conference organizers. Usually after the deadline is uh, finished. Uh, depending on how busy is that conference And you? That's just a waiting game for you. Where can you find information about conferences? There are loads of different conferences, but you want to go to those ones that are really credible. Right? So you want to do go to these conferences that are organized by people in the field? One of them is, For example, when you do your online search, you can see Royal College of Surgeons in England. Royal College of Surgeons. Uh, Edinburgh, uh, society of British knowledge called surgeons or not, We at now saying we have some conferences. Uh, this is neurology and neurosurgery. Uh, special interest group that I'm honored to be a member of British neuro oncological, uh, surgeon society. So these are different things. Just give you an example of where you can present, but there are other plenty of other examples. Make sure, uh, if you're not sure about it, ask someone who's been to a conference. Ask your mentor, your tutor or your supervisor, or other people who've been to those conferences before, or even you can reach me at the end. I will provide my detail information about how to contact me. You can reach me, and if I can be any help. I will be glad to. Now you got your data. You analyze your data, you identified your right conference and you want to write an abstract. The abstract is basically the entire project summarized in a few 100 wards, different conferences. Sometimes they have a template for abstract. Different conferences have different requirements. Whether the abstract is structured or unstructured by structure, it means that the abstract should have different sections for for example, this is the introduction. This is the aims, methods, results and conclusion, sometimes un structure. So when you identify that conference, go and try to find the requirement for abstract submission. Abstract is the summary of the project saying Why, why you did what you did, what you got. What were your findings? What was the conclusion from that piece of research? Basically, if someone just read the abstract and they don't have time or they don't want to go and read the entire poster or come to the oral presentation, they need to understand the basics of what you've done abstract, whether it's structured or not, but it has to have different sections. First of all, it should have introduction your introduction should be very clear. Remember, Please. You've done the work. You spend a few months or even years on a project, you might get to a very expertise level of that project. But someone else might not be at the level that you are about that specific project, right? So think about your target audience. When you are going to present at the conferences, you're gonna have medical students. Uh, preclinical year, clinical year. You're gonna have foundation doctors or surgical training all the way into consultant senior neurosurgeons, Neurologist, depending on the conference that you are attending. So you want to have an abstract that is clear for everyone. That's your statement about the problem that you wanted to solve. Well, this is the basic of research. You identify the gap. Whether it was a gap in surgical approaches, whether it was a gap in patient care, it was a gap in training. It was a gap in communication. It was a gap at patient care at your hospital audit project. Or it was a gap about controversies between different papers and you decided to do a systematic review. Maternal icis. First, you What was the gap? What was your new idea what you wanted to discover and creating that, uh, from that part of research? Um, you should know the background work. You should mention that. What was the background? What work has been done before you, right? And how you come up with these new ideas and you want to say that this was this aims that we had in this project. You want to talk about the method that you used? For example, was this project based on, uh, getting some different recruiting so different Patient's What is different project about having surveys among patient's among doctors Was this project looking at different literature from different databases? Was this project about, uh, creating some new instruments? So you want to clearly explain that method that you use what was the procedure and justify any assumptions that you had, uh, that can be viewed as a your proper context of the your project during result sections. You want to say these are the examples, the most important pieces of the results that you have. You don't have to put all your results there right. You just need to put the most important bits of your results, especially When we talk about the such a short time presentation, you might have done a one or two years work. I did a PhD degree, 3.5 years work. I'm going to conferences. I've had 5, 10 minutes presentation. I'm doing some neurosurgery project over a month, and I've been to conferences with just eight minutes of presentation, Right? So you want to give the most important piece of those results, and you want to discuss and conclude that why these things that you did were important? Okay, what was the take home message of that? Now, when you are sending your abstract for a poster presentation or oral presentation, judges first they try to see that. What is the content? What is this about? Right. So, as I mentioned before, it's important. Know your audience, right? Your audience is going to be a mixture of different medical students register and consultants. Sometimes judges who are going to actually select those abstracts. Depending on the conference that you are attending, might be a mixture of again medical students all the way to neurosurgeons. They want to see. Is this really clear? Did you really understand what the presenter is going to do? Is this abstract organized. You gave the good introduction continued methods, results and conclusion, or it was just haphazardly. Everything was a mixture. Did you make a good link to the existing literature, existing knowledge that we have about that what was the background? Right. So you usually build a project on the basis of existing knowledge and what is a good design? Right? So it was designed in a clear and logical way, and depending on that, they will compare two different abstracts and give you a score. And if you are above their threshold, hopefully you can get an offer. Now, let's talk about the money. That's a big issue I know about for medical students. Uh, depending on, uh, at which stage or at, uh what, uh, what degree you are doing? The conference is going to be involved with the registration fee. This can be anything from a few quid to a few 100 lbs. You need to pay for your commute. This is back to what we talked about, that you might commute locally, regionally, nationally or internationally. If this conferences over a few days, you might be leaving, uh, you might reside at some residences. It can be Airbnb or hotel that you are there If you are working, if you have a part time job. If you are for example, lecturing or tutoring, you might. You're working as a healthcare assistant. You need to take time off from that work, right? So that again gonna be financial cost to you? Uh, I would suggest you ask help from your medical school email. Your tutor is not going to do any harm. Email your supervisor dean of your school saying that I'm going to attend this conference. Is there Are there any opportunities for me to get some funding? Sometimes some conference organizers actually will give you those opportunities so there wouldn't be any harm to asking them that. Are there any funding? Sometimes they get advertised. Sometimes you need to ask them if you are a member of the society. For example, if you are a member of affiliate member of Royal College of Surgeons in England or Royal Culture of Surgeons in Edinburgh Royal Culture of Surgeons Ireland, there are some scholarship and bursaries for for you. So ask from those societies. If you're a member of association of surgeon in training, for example, issues. Or if you're a member of other societies, ask them. Are there any funding for me? Can you please help me with that? It wouldn't do any harm, and they might partial. They might give you a discount. It's registration fee. They might give you discount with, for example, um, residence fee if you are. If the if the hotel or resident is part of the conference, or they might give you full or partial bursaries on that now attending the conference. Uh, it's associated with some points for you. For example, if you are attending the conference, is there going to be points in your court surgical training and in your North surgery application as well? But getting prized at those conferences will, uh, point will have additional points for you, so you can go and look up the court surgical training, application and, of course, the neurosurgical application with court surgical training. If you get a prize from a recognized surgical institution or national or international conference, you will score six points. This is 2022 the latest one with neurosurgery. If you present, you get maximum up to three points in your application, and this can be 1 to 3 point depending of the conferences, regional national international level and whether you presented a poster or an oral presentation. So, uh, is a good activity that you want to engage as part of your research? You want to gain some transferable skills, but also it will help you for your future dreams and career. Sometimes some conferences will help you to publish in journals. Usually these are proceedings of the journals. So you present at a conference, whether it's oral or face to face. And afterwards those abstracts will be published at the Journal. So that will get a do I, uh, and then you will get, uh, sometimes they published I D. For them. Importantly, you need to note that some journals will accept works that has been presented previously at conferences, whereas some journals they don't accept. They say that this work should be totally novel. If part of it is presented at a conference, we don't accept them. So it's best to talk to your mentor, talk to your supervisor and tell them that is it okay that if we present part of this work at a conference. Sometimes some journals, some neurosurgery journals actually asked you when you're submitting your paper. Or usually this is done by corresponding author Who is your mentor? More senior researcher. You need to take a box saying that part of this work has been presented at this conference. Part of this work has never been presented before. Uh, so it's up to you is your decision depends on the journal that, for example, you are targeting. This might be even a few months or years after you presented that work, because the research might have been continuing for some time to accomplish all those data. But this is the best. This would be a good opportunity base actually going to a conference and having the post or oral presentation and also having a journal publication as well. Now what you want to do at a conference. First of all, you want to enjoy the process. This is an opportunity for you. You work really hard. You got some data, right, and you want to present that data. Use it as a learning skills. I know that's very easy to be getting involved with trying to accumulate all those points and then getting these two conferences presenting your I. I've done research, but you want to enjoy the process. Enjoy your journey. Learn from other people who present their work, learn from other medical students who work very hard, learn from junior doctors. Neurosurgeons go and ask questions. That's really important. Ask couple of questions at conferences. Uh, it will help you to consolidate your learning. You want to make new connections. You want to make new friends? Uh, some of your friends might end up actually being at the same dinner with you at your neurosurgical training. Some of those people who you met at conferences might end up becoming, uh, your supervisors that you're not a surgical training. Learn from everyone. Everyone has something to teach right? Learn from medical students. Learn from junior doctors. Absolutely. Learn from those know resurgence, and you want to improve yourself for the next opportunities for the next conference. Right? So, for example, you can present you had some, uh, dance in your mind about piece of your work that oh, should I have done this? Should I have done this different? Research wrote. You go to a conference and see that Yeah. Other groups around the world have done that. You come back, modify your approach, go and present at a different conference. Right. And that will be a stepping stuff for you. Stepping stone for you to go and become better on a daily basis. If you don't improve yourself every day. Well, you are not progressing right? Every single day. You need to try to be better compared to yesterday, right? Learn something new. Learn something. Remember something new. Change your approach to ours. Life otherwise remain in the same place and work into our same thing. You don't make progress. Thank you very much for listening. Keep in touch. If you have any questions, you can approach me on social media on Twitter or LinkedIn. If I can be any help If you need help with your presentation, if you need help with some advice whether you are a medical student you want to apply for neurosurgery. You want to present at conferences, You want to find suitable conferences, don't hesitate to get in touch. I hope you enjoy these lecture. And I hope to see you at future opportunities. Thank you.