Resources for oral presentation skills?

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florida91

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I just started my rotations and am still kind of struggling with what to include in different SOAPs/oral presentations depending on the type of visit (for example, what to include if a patient presenting for acute care vs. patient presenting for follow-up vs. patient for a wellness exam). I know it depends on your attending but I was wondering if anyone had any good books/websites they know of that might help clear some of this up. Thanks!

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It all hinges on you knowing the appropriate things to ask and examine for the given situation. As a rule you generally want to give stuff in the right order. I would say always be prepared for a full formal presentation, but abridge it as needed. Know more, say less.

For follow up visits and well checks, most of your hpi will be pertinent negatives. Obviously you need to know what these are to do this well. For acute issues your hpi will be a little easier as you basically recite the pertinent aspects of a story. The key is summarizing the findings. Patients will give you 2-3 minutes on something that can summed up in 3 seconds.

For the exam, as a student you'll want to do a pretty thorough one since that's the whole point of your learning. As a rule, describe what you see or don't see/hear/feel, but don't say "benign" or "normal" because nobody believes you know what that means yet.

Give important labs, imaging, etc. Give your own findings and don't just repeat the formal read. As you go along, you'll learn to put some of this at the top (most recent A1c for diabetics, last EF for CHF, etc), but avoid the habit of reciting the entire past history before the HPI.

For the assessment and plan, make sure you don't give this away earlier. Most common problem is students editorializing through the whole presentation. Just recite the facts and save your thoughts for the end. Ask your attending how they like this part done as each will be different.

Overall, this gets at the very crux of medical education in that you're learning the language of medicine and how to communicate effectively with other physicians. I learn more about this every day in residency and don't see the learning stopping any time soon.
 
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It all hinges on you knowing the appropriate things to ask and examine for the given situation. As a rule you generally want to give stuff in the right order. I would say always be prepared for a full formal presentation, but abridge it as needed. Know more, say less.

For follow up visits and well checks, most of your hpi will be pertinent negatives. Obviously you need to know what these are to do this well. For acute issues your hpi will be a little easier as you basically recite the pertinent aspects of a story. The key is summarizing the findings. Patients will give you 2-3 minutes on something that can summed up in 3 seconds.

For the exam, as a student you'll want to do a pretty thorough one since that's the whole point of your learning. As a rule, describe what you see or don't see/hear/feel, but don't say "benign" or "normal" because nobody believes you know what that means yet.

Give important labs, imaging, etc. Give your own findings and don't just repeat the formal read. As you go along, you'll learn to put some of this at the top (most recent A1c for diabetics, last EF for CHF, etc), but avoid the habit of reciting the entire past history before the HPI.

For the assessment and plan, make sure you don't give this away earlier. Most common problem is students editorializing through the whole presentation. Just recite the facts and save your thoughts for the end. Ask your attending how they like this part done as each will be different.

Overall, this gets at the very crux of medical education in that you're learning the language of medicine and how to communicate effectively with other physicians. I learn more about this every day in residency and don't see the learning stopping any time soon.

Thank you so much! That is such helpful advice and basically exactly what I was looking for. I'm hoping everything will start to become more natural with time but that is definitely reassuring to hear that you're continuing to learn more about this!
 
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Recording yourself and playing it back to yourself is also good practice. :) Albeit embarrassing.
 
It all hinges on you knowing the appropriate things to ask and examine for the given situation. As a rule you generally want to give stuff in the right order. I would say always be prepared for a full formal presentation, but abridge it as needed. Know more, say less.

For follow up visits and well checks, most of your hpi will be pertinent negatives. Obviously you need to know what these are to do this well. For acute issues your hpi will be a little easier as you basically recite the pertinent aspects of a story. The key is summarizing the findings. Patients will give you 2-3 minutes on something that can summed up in 3 seconds.

For the exam, as a student you'll want to do a pretty thorough one since that's the whole point of your learning. As a rule, describe what you see or don't see/hear/feel, but don't say "benign" or "normal" because nobody believes you know what that means yet.

Give important labs, imaging, etc. Give your own findings and don't just repeat the formal read. As you go along, you'll learn to put some of this at the top (most recent A1c for diabetics, last EF for CHF, etc), but avoid the habit of reciting the entire past history before the HPI.

For the assessment and plan, make sure you don't give this away earlier. Most common problem is students editorializing through the whole presentation. Just recite the facts and save your thoughts for the end. Ask your attending how they like this part done as each will be different.

Overall, this gets at the very crux of medical education in that you're learning the language of medicine and how to communicate effectively with other physicians. I learn more about this every day in residency and don't see the learning stopping any time soon.

lol so much this.

also consider excluding the term "unremarkable" until at least a week with the team. i used a lot of "NAEO, VSS, physical exam largely unchanged with the exception of: ____, (named) labs down to/up to" and then went into the A/P. less than 2-3min, even on medicine. of course, the outpatient stuff is going to be different ie more focus on preventative medicine (vaccinations, colonoscopies, etc).

pro-tip from one my favorite attendings: your presentation should come out like an interesting, *succinct* story. make every word count. the listener should 1.) not get bored 2.) not have to look anything up

EDIT! also consider dipping back into your foundations of clinical medicine/"how to be a real doctor" courses. we had handouts with formats for each type of note/exam. medfools is a great site for templates, as well.
 
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