Poster Experience: “Does Morning Report Really Prepare Us For Boards?”
There’s always a nervous tension when someone approaches your poster. Are they going to walk by without a second glance? Skim over the poster without saying a word? Perhaps ask questions outside the scope of the poster content – but that can always be answered with, “that’s definitely a future step!” I had the privilege of presenting a poster at SHM as one of its conference grant winners and, fortunately, virtually everyone at SHM fell into a fourth category: thoughtful discussion with genuine curiosity and a desire to engage.
Throughout last year, my research mentor and I worked on a project comparing my institution’s morning report content with the material covered on ABIM Board exams. After analyzing over 400 PowerPoint presentations, we composed an abstract in the fall and submitted it to SHM’s Physicians in Training conference grant – and won! As anyone in academia can attest, this sort of validation is priceless and certainly made me proud of the hours we had put into this project.
Our results demonstrated that, collectively, residents at my institution do a good job presenting the primary medical content we need to know on Boards, but they could make a more concerted effort to focus on other aspects of medicine – areas such as ethics, patient safety, and preventive care. Perhaps more interestingly, it demonstrated that residents gravitate towards presenting more uncommon “zebras” at the end of the academic year.
It was rewarding to be able to present these findings to colleagues at SHM. But just as rewarding were the steps leading up to the conference: developing a research question with my mentor, composing an abstract, winning the conference grant, and creating the poster itself. Perhaps the weirdest part was recording an audio version – who likes the sound of their own recorded voice?
During the actual poster presentation, I loved the opportunity to share my work with students, residents, and faculty who carry a similar passion in delivering high-quality medical education. One person talked about morning report at their own institution. Another pulled up a related paper they had recently read. In hindsight, my poster felt less like something I needed to formally present, and more like a conversation starter at the dinner table. All these conversations left me energized about how I can change morning report at my own institution to make it more reflective of the content we perhaps should be learning.
And beyond my own poster, colleagues to my left and right were doing the same. I loved walking around after my session and connecting with other residents who were sharing their work – I even came across a college friend I hadn’t seen in years who also happened to be another conference grant winner! And the networking opportunities these sessions provided were invaluable; meeting other residents, faculty members, and fellowship program directors left me excited for opportunities for collaboration and growth I hadn’t previously known existed.
Looking back, it’s clear presenting a poster as an SHM Converge conference grant winner was rewarding in itself, but it also provided much more than just the opportunity to present my own work. It allowed me to come to SHM in the first place – to learn so much and meet so many wonderful people I’m confident will be present throughout my career. It’s a great sign when you leave a jam-packed conference feeling more energized than when you arrived – I can’t wait to do it all again in Austin next year.
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