Presentation skills for Doctors

Stehascope

Long term readers may remember that I used to research in a Medical School. For that matter, my elder daughter is training to become a Doctor. Many years ago I even addressed the World Health Organisation… and so presentations made by doctors are close to my heart.

If only presentations were close to doctor’s hearts! ;)

Now, to be fair, things are improving. If my daughter’s training as a doctor is typical then presentations are becoming more and more part of that training, and recently I was asked to do some presentation skills training for various groups of doctors.

What why is it that presentations made by doctors tend to be a bit, well, rubbish? And what specific tips for doctors have I got?

Hmmmm…….

The first question is probably best addressed by saying that doctors tend to be extreme examples of a problem suffered by many (most?) expert presenters. That is, they know their stuff, it’s highly technical stuff they’re presenting, and (often) they don’t want to be doing the presentation. Everything I’ve ever said about reluctant, expert presenters is written large here!

For example, doctors will generally have spent a long, long time getting to grips with a problem. They’ll know that problem inside out and backwards before they start making presentations about it. And with that level of knowledge comes the associated problem of not being able to step back and figure out what your audience doesn’t know. As a doctor, you’ll take things for granted (jargon and terminology in particular) that your audience will either

• not know at all – leading to them not following your presentation; or
• not being familiar with – leading to them taking a moment to think about it, and therefore not listening to what you say next.

For example, I heard a presentation recently about VMO-damage. VMO? Good question. As it happens, I know what it stands for… but I was probably the only person in the room (excluding the doctor who was making the presentation) who had a clue. Of course, if you’re presenting to other doctors that’s less of a problem… or is it?

Let’s face it, if the audience already knows what you’re telling them, why are you telling them it? If they don’t know it, chances are you’re making some assumptions about what they know.

Trust me on this – the less you think it could possibly apply to your own presentations, the greater the chance that it does! :)

So what can doctors do to improve the quality of their presentations? For a start, they could think about the three and a half questions for designing a presentation I’ve blogged about before – what does my audience know, what do they need to know… etc… If you’re a doctor reading this, please (please, I’m on my knees here) don’t fall foul of the subconscious arrogance many doctors have about  not needing to do the basics, like ‘ordinary’ people. (Yes, you’re bright, and yes, you worked hard at medical school, but no, you’re not special. Believe me, I know, I used to lecture you! ;) )

Secondly, remember that your audience won’t remember the vast majority of what you tell them just thirty minutes after the end of the presentation. If you want people to remember hardcore facts and figures you need to

• be interesting enough for people to care about the details; and
• have the details available as a handout afterwards.

There’s no point in trying to include the full-on details in your presentation. You know this really. All you have to do is think back the lectures you endured at medical school. How much of what you ‘learned’ in lectures stuck with you? Compared to how much you learned from books afterwards?

Unless you’re (strongly) a-typical, the latter was more effective as a teaching device. Ask yourself what the lectures did. Well, as what the good ones did, at least!

Did they show you skills? Were they interactive? Were they fun or engaging? Did they make you think? Did they excite or enthuse you?

Or did you fall asleep, doped by the bullet points as effectively as five litres of morphine?

Take some time to step back from your presentation as you design it – both before and after as well – and make notes of what’s really (really!) important.  Less is more, so cut away the fat. (I’m tempted to make some joke about surgeons here, but I’ll resist! :) ).  I recommend working on your presentation in 30 minute blocks, with ten minutes being spent cutting and judging your content, rather than creating it. It might sound like an in-effective way of creating a presentation but you’ll thank me in the end. (And if you don’t your audiences will!)

Don’t do unto others as you were done to – do unto others as you would have liked to have been done to!

A third problem is that of detail – and how much it is important to include.

Look back over this blog post for stuff I’ve put in bold. Not much.  That’s because I want the bold stuff to stand out. If everything was in bold, the important words wouldn’t be any easier to spot than if nothing was in bold.

Right? Yes. Perhaps harder, because bold makes it harder to read.

So why do so many doctors insist on including every single detail they can think of in their presentations? Just like in written text if everything is emphasised, nothing is emphasised, in presentations if everything is important then nothing is important.

No presentation ever, ever, ever, has content in which everything is just as important as everything else. Seriously.

If you think it does, get some outside professional help.

Speaking of help – that’s problem number four I’ve noticed about doctors. For whatever reason, doctors are particularly reticent about asking for help (not just in their presentations but in almost everything). It’s almost as if doctors believe that they know best about everything.

Sure, as a doctor you’re smart. You’ll almost certainly have worked very hard at medical school. Chances are your IQ is remarkably high… but that doesn’t make you special ;)    I’m an expert in writing presentations but if I have a medical problem I ask a doctor for help….

You know what to do!