PGY2

One clinical question. That’s all we’re trying to answer with the PGY2 Grand Rounds. Good past examples are “Does hypertension control reduce the risk of dementia?” and “Do blood cell-free DNA tests accurately diagnose cancer?”

PGY3

In PGY3, you’re given much more freedom. Resist the urge to do a “scoping review” of a topic. You’ll only put your audience to sleep. They have UpToDate and review articles for that. Instead, try to give them deeper knowledge of a topic: “What elite endurance athletes can teach us about lactic acidosis,” or “Here’s how artificial intelligence will change your practice in the next five years.”

Or take the chance to be provocative: “All patients with atrial fibrillation should be tested for cardiac amyloidosis,” or “All patients with uncontrolled diabetes should be screened for Cushing’s,” for example. You don’t have to be right, but you should be thoughtful.

The process

  1. Two months before your presentation: Pick a topic that fits the criteria for your PGY year and send it to Justin Moore for feedback. Start collecting essential papers that support your narrative and save them in a PubMed collection.

  2. Six weeks before your presentation: share the collection with Justin Moore. Our goal is to make sure that the highest-impact, highest-quality evidence is accounted for.

  3. Create a PowerPoint slide deck and share it with Justin Moore via SharePoint (NOT by attaching it to an email). Ideally, your slide deck will have no more than ~50 slides and no text smaller than 28 points. If you need a PowerPoint slide deck to get started, contact Justin Moore.

  4. Don’t use words where a picture is better.

  5. Put together a “story.” You don’t want your slides to be a death march through the literature. Think about how the story you’re telling the audience has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Make your last slide before your sign-off be the one or two things you want the audience to know or change when they leave the room.

  6. At least one week before your presentation: schedule a meeting with Justin Moore through calendly.com/doublearrow to review your slides. This meeting can be conducted in-person or via Zoom/Teams. This is mandatory.

  7. Take advantage of artificial intelligence. Upload your slides to your favorite AI platform and ask it to adopt the persona of a clinician attending Grand Rounds. Ask the AI questions like “What questions should I anticipate from a crowd of Internal Medicine residents?” and “Pretend to be a fellowship director in the audience and give me three insights and three recommendations about my presentation.” “What are some angles on the topic I didn’t consider, and what might be the unintended consequences of my proposed strategy?” Make the AI explain and defend its ideas by asking why it gave certain answers and challenging it to offer other options.

  8. Invite KU or community attendings with clinical expertise to your presentation.

  9. Practice your presentation before you get to the auditorium. Think of what your presentation would be like if the projector broke in the middle of the talk. Would you still be able to get the main points across?