An Assessment of Presentation Slide Quality at a National Hand Surgery Meeting.

Abstract

Effective information transfer relies on the proper use of educational tools. Evaluating the quality of presentations permits us to improve educational materials in plastic surgery. Our specific aims were to assess the quality of presentations at a national hand surgery meeting using a checklist of presentation standards from the literature and to identify areas of improvement. Our sample included presentations from the Clinical Papers Sessions at the 2020 American Society for Surgery of the Hand (ASSH) Annual Meeting. A modified checklist based on the literature was used to assess the presentations. Two members of the research team extracted data from the included presentations and disagreements were reviewed collaboratively. A total of 96 presentations were included in this sample. The mean number of deficiencies per slide set was approximately nine. Misused graphics, ambiguous content (undefined abbreviations, undefined symbols, etc.), and overdetermined slides were the most common deficiencies identified in our sample. One-way ANOVA analysis of presenter role found a significant difference in the mean number of deficiencies (F (2, 93) = 7.36, p = 0.001) among different types of presenters with surgeon presenters exhibiting more deficiencies than students and other healthcare professionals. The use of a checklist to evaluate a presentation helps in cultivating more effective presentations in national meetings. A collaborative peer-review process incorporating feedback from multiple trainees, audience members, and colleagues facilitates effective information transfer through presentations.