Monday, May 14, 2007

Bored Review - Day 1/2

Yes, I'm still here. Someone commented that my lack of more posts yesterday signified that things were getting a little better. I guess that's accurate. Here are some random thoughts from the last couple of days.....

One of the things I really liked was receiving a choice of either a HUGE 200+ syllabus or a SMALL USB drive that I could put into my computer and take notes on the slides there. Very nice. If you're planning a meeting out there, please make this option available. My shoulder got sore in past meetings lugging around a huge three ring binder.

I'm always interested in who actually attends these things. I would say about a third of the attendees are males in their 60s. They have a smile on their face when they tell me, "Yeah, this will be the last time I take this stupid board review exam." I hope to get there some day.

Here are some questions: Why do presenters insist on squeezing as many words on each slide as they can? And, why do they insist on reading from their slides? If you make a presentation, please don't do this. And, please pick bright colors for your powerpoint slides. It is much appreciated.

The free internet in the meeting room. Plain and simple, every meeting should have this. I don't care what the meeting subjecct is. If you're offering CME and have net access, you're attendance will be pretty good.

Near the end of the day, I'm thinking to myself, "How did I get through all those years of college and med school, because after 6-8 hours of didactic lectures, I'm pretty tired." Yeesh!

That's it for now. If you want to try to keep me awake during the next 3-4 days (Yikes!), continue to send me e-mails and comments. I have to say, the stuff that has been sent already has been hilarious. Thanks a lot!

6 comments:

ID Crossroads said...

Hi Dr. A,
I can't believe you are blogging during the sessions! :) I find it very amusing. Hey, whatever it takes to not slip into a coma, right? ;) You are sure studious, going to board review 14 months before the test! I'm kind of a crammer myself. Yeah, famous last words. Heh.

Dr. A said...

About blogging during sessions - I call it multitasking, but my friends joke with me calling it expressing my attention deficit disorder.

About being "studious," I don't think so, but thanks for your kind words. Standardized tests cause me a little anxiety, so starting now will definitely help me. Yup....

Anonymous said...

Great blog brodel

coaster1robert said...

well, have fun at your conference,don't work to hard. Robert

Marilyn said...

I used to attend conferences when I taught and I'm still using those awful binders over and over for other things. A usb would have been a great thing, but I don't think they'd been invented yet. All walks of people in all proffesions make power point slides and then read them to the audience. This is a major hindrance to achieving world peace.

Anonymous said...

Hi Dr. A:
I've been out of commission for a few days, and am just catching up. If it's not too late, good luck on your boards. And THANK YOU for your comments about ppt slides (reading them, cramming too much in one slide, and poor use of colors. I have been trying to drill in to presenters for 15 years these very things (with little success). I often wonder if the presenters actually even look at their slides before they present. I bet the majority answer is no.
I'm only a lowly pissant educator. Who do I think I am, trying to make a faculty doc look better to his/her peers. My revenge is when those peers indicate on evaluations that the slides/presentation sucked.