Each year, every resident will present two 45 minute lectures directed primarily to the remainder of the residents at the monthly conference on a subject chosen and approved by the Program Director.  The topics are designed to comprehensively address all major areas of our discipline over a three year period.  Effective with residents entering their first year of full time otolaryngology training in July 2002, residents will be assigned topics with limited ability to switch with fellow residents in the same year.  Each topic will come with a list of questions that must be answered in the talk.  The questions are designed to elicit the most important aspects of the topic for the OTE and boards exams.  Thus each lecture is already outlined.  Before giving the lecture, each resident is asked to consult an appropriate faculty member to review the lecture for completeness and provide additional tips.  (As of July 2006 the Program Director will appoint a faculty reviewer to each resident.)

In addition to presenting an organized lecture before a “friendly” audience, which is good preparation for presentations of papers before learned societies, these lectures will provide a period of dedicated study for the residency under the tutorship of the more senior residents.  A written narrative of the presentation should be prepared and distributed, and an electronic version sent to the Resident Secretary to be posted on the Department web site.

Attention should be given to AV material.  Slides may be prepared at the VAMC at no charge, but a Power Point presentation delivered from a laptop computer is easier and more readily distributed to the Department and fellow residents.  You must proof-read your slides carefully; one misspelled word on a slide can ruin the effect of the presentation.  If you use dual projection, plan your talk so that both slides are advanced simultaneously.  Don’t try to put too much on your slide.  If you can’t read the writing without magnification at a distance of one foot, you have too much on the slide or the characters are too small.

rev 05/06