Information for Presenters

About Grand Rounds

Grand Rounds is our division’s most highly regarded speaking engagement. The audience is a diverse group of general internal medicine faculty, staff and trainees with a broad spectrum of clinical, research, scholarly and other educational interests.

This is unpublished

GUIDELINES FOR SUCCESS

Impact

The most effective talks are accessible to the breadth of backgrounds in the audience and link research to clinical care or to broader trends in the medical profession.

Structure

  • Start with a title slide, followed by a disclosures slide, and an objectives slide. One of your objectives should include clinical relevance of the talk to the general internist. You may wish to include a brief patient presentation.
  • End with a slide summarizing key points followed by an acknowledgements slide.

Time limitations

  • After introductions, you will have 45 minutes for your presentation. Expect to finish by 12:50pm to allow ten minutes for audience questions.
  • We ask that you rehearse and time your presentation in advance. In general, plan for one slide per minute.

Audience/Content of Talk

 Grand Rounds attendees include:

  • Generalists (primary care physicians and hospitalists)
  • Trainees (fellows, residents, medical students)

Please put your material in context for the audience. Please assume that the majority of the audience is not familiar with your research area. Please avoid using jargon or abbreviations. Please also avoid focusing the majority of the talk on basic research concepts or technical details that do not have a clinical relevance explicitly addressed in your talk.

Social Determinants of Health and Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

A division goal is to expand the forum for education regarding social determinants of health and equity, diversity, and inclusion. We encourage speakers to include content and discussion related to these topics.

Engagement

  • Try not to read directly off your slides. Summarize the main points in writing on the slide and provide further detail during your talk. 
  • The addition of technology (e.g., echocardiogram videos) can help to engage the audience, however, please make sure you have tested the videos in your presentation ahead of time to avoid problems on the day of your talk. 

Slide design

  • Use tables, graphs, pictures, and videos.
  • Choose light colors on dark backgrounds or dark colors on light backgrounds.
    • Keep the color scheme consistent throughout your presentation.
    • Avoid reds with greens (for audience members who are colorblind).
  • Use at least a 24-point font so everyone in attendance can read your material.
    • Limit the number of words per slide.
    • Simple fonts like Calibri, Arial, or Century Gothic are easier to read than Times Roman, Courier New, or Monotype Corsiva.