ASH Clinical News ACN_5.6_Full_Issue_Digital | Page 42

How I Teach “How I Teach” is ASH Clinical News’ forum for sharing best practices in teaching hematology to medical students, residents, and fellows. We invite essays providing insight into teaching and modeling clinical practice (history-taking, the physical exam, informed consent, giving bad news), successful research mentoring, disease-specific tips, or more general advice. Marc J. Kahn, MD, MBA, MACP writes about a new approach to research presentations. Dr. Kahn is Peterman-Prosser Professor of Medicine and Associate Dean for Student Affairs at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans. FROM POWERPOINT TO PECHAKUCHA By Marc J. Kahn, MD, MBA, MACP How often have you sat in the audience of a presentation at a medical conference and heard the speaker apologet- ically mumble, “Sorry, this is a busy slide …” How many times have you strained your eyes to read paragraphs of red text on a blue background? How many times have you squirmed in your chair as someone chose to spend his or her allotted time reading verbatim from slides? For anyone who attends educational events with any regularity, these are all common scenarios – the unfortunate side effects of a reliance on PowerPoint presentations. Slideshows are the norm for medical pre- sentations, but there is another way – a shorter, more engaging, and more fun way: PechaKucha. “PechaKucha” is the Japanese term for “chitchat.” As the name suggests, this presentation style is fast-paced: 20 slides appear on screen for 20 seconds each. The slides automatically advance after the allotted 20 seconds, so the time constraint forces speakers to get to the point. The slides also are light on text, with most presenters opting for images only. So, an entire talk takes 6 minutes and 40 seconds, followed by a question-and-answer period with the audience. Several talks, potentially covering a massive amount of information, can be given in a relatively small block of time. This presentation style was devised in 2003 for a meeting of Tokyo architects. The meeting organizers, realizing that architects could talk forever on any topic, devised the PechaKucha format to streamline presenta- tions into concise, engaging experiences for the audi- ence – and the presenter. Within a couple of years, PechaKucha gained trac- tion in several different professional settings. At the inaugural trainee-focused ASH-a-Palooza preceding the 2018 American Soci- ety of Hematology Annual Meeting, organizers in- cluded PechaKucha–style “Blood Drops,” talks in which experts spoke for 5 minutes using 20 slides that advanced automati- cally. I also have chaired PechaKucha sessions at the American College of Physicians annual meet- ing, where it has turned into a spectator sport – complete with a gong to subtly remind speakers when their time is up. Practice Makes PechaKucha Perfect Audience members love the PechaKucha format because it is undeniably fun to see if presenters can give a great presentation within such tight parameters. Speakers seem to enjoy the format because those same tight pa- rameters force them to hone their presentation skills and think about what really matters. Typically, when we prepare for an hour-long talk, we open PowerPoint and map out around 60 slides, following the standard rule of “one slide per minute.” We write down our talking points and fill out our slide CLASSIFIED NC – NEAR PINEHURST, COAST Hem/Onc need at Duke Health affiliate. Town is 35 minutes south of Pinehurst, 45 minutes from Fayetteville, < 2 hours from beaches, Triangle, and Charlotte. Practice at a TOP 49 Safest Hospital. Consultative call only. 40 ASH Clinical News Contact Melisa at 800-764-7497 Text: 910-280-1337 Email: [email protected] Visit our website: www.scotlandhealth.org templates, and that’s it. Most of us don’t practice them – why would we, when we have so much information on our slides? So, how do you start a PechaKucha presentation? First, figure out what you want to say. The time con- straint requires speakers to pare down their talking points. What information do you want to communicate? How can you do that with 20 slides that are only visible for 20 seconds each? If you can’t cover your topic in 6 minutes and 40 seconds, then you need to rethink and revise accordingly. Next, storyboard your slides. Unlike the traditional presentation style in which the slides can supplant your lecture, the slides in a PechaKucha presentation are on the screen to enrich your presentation. Each slide con- tains little text in favor of images. Any text that you do include should be contained in a succinct bulleted list that keeps you on track. When selecting images, you want to pick something that you could not adequately describe with text – a graph, a pathology image, a blood smear, etc. For exam- ple, my Blood Drop talk at ASH-a-Palooza covered the value of getting a degree in addition to your MD. When May 2019