What advice do you have for a first-time speaker at medical conference?

Great advice. I saw Barbra Bush speak at a lunch function. She was a last minute stand in and gave what appeared to be a "canned" speech. She did a great job because she appeared relaxed and natural, even when she obviously lost her place. She did not try to hide the fact that she lost her place, but rather owned it and said something like, "Hey, give me a break. I'm an old lady." That helped put the audience at ease and she she found her place and picked back up.

Know your material and presentation well enough that you are not just reading from your PowerPoint slides. Try to work off an outline instead of reading from a script.

I will be speaking at the AAACN annual conference held this year in Florida my topic of discussion is Virtual Telehealth my experience and how I feel VTC will affect the future medics of the army. I was told a power point presentation would suffice I have a 30 minute slot that I will be sharing with a VTC guru.

OK, that helps significantly...I'm assuming you have, e.g., half that time for your stuff, half that time would ne for the guru...so, let's say 15 mins for you, 15 mins for the guru, I'd expect...you both need to cover your explicit areas, possibly alternate, with one another, though I'd expect your orractical day to day observations would be tour part, the technical aspects would be the gurus...I'd include a short video snippet, a recording, of an actual telehealth exam, possibly a few mins, depending on what material you've saved tpthat could be presented, use an actual case, removing all the identifying material...if it could be an actual exam, if at all possible, assuming such info could be made completely anonymous to the patient, use a laser pointer, and be able to freeze frame the video, pointing out relevant features, after doing maybe five minutes of Power Point...use a dynamic format of alternating between Power Point, and such a video format...also, include a surgical segment, as well as a triage segment, so, triage, exam, surgical, those three video snippets, mixed in with Power Point...you might want to use video on one screen, and another simultaneously for Power Point matl...take turns presenting, a cpl minutes the guru to start, describing all the technobabble, then you jump in wit a case in point, with your clinical anecdotal observations, all the time, between you, mixed in with video of actual patient care...doubtless, you'd need to conform to all he usual patient anonymity stuff, of course...however, purely as a first approximation, that'd be how I'd do it...before my disability, I presented at a residency conference on ultrasonic approaches to wound debridement, using ultrasonic cavitations hardware, with another resident...I did all the physics, she chimed in about the procedural use of that equipment, how it responded, I'd been helping with the hardware when I'd been in OR with her, another resident, and our residency director....we took turns alternating back and forth for about 20 mins, about five mins each, in a couple of cycles...I was able to convey all the technobabble, added a few graphs about accelerated wound closure and biofilm removal, she gave her anecdotal observations on visible characteristics of tissue, relative to patients treated conventionally, using conventional scalpel based debridement approaches, as done in OR for really complex wounds, both diabetic and vascular. I merely describe that as a case in point I actually did, the one and only time I Eger got to actually do one...I've been to many such conferences, of expect your audience would involve hundreds or participants, such large scale conferences typically do, in a gynormous auditorium...also, I'd wondered, would they be having you do this in uniform, assuming that'd be allowed? Or would it be in civilian clothes, I was merely curious to ask that...they'd likely give an intro on you and the guru, describing your training, exposure and backgrounds, that's also typical for such large scale meetings.. .I hope that was of use.. Give me your thoughts, elaborate further, I'd be most eager to hear more...also, look up AMSUS, research their papers on that whole VTC topic, look up AMSUS if you've never seen it, you might also look up VTC on Entrez Pubmed and/or Pubmed Central, the NIH Medline websites, Entrez has both free and paid articles, Central is all free articles, both Re Pubmed, just search for those sites ifmyou haven't seen them AMSUS, on military med, then Entrez Pubmed, and then Pubmed Central, you'll find innumerable reference articles, I'm quite sure...find out if AACN has any AMSUS liaison, you might find useful to chat with them, AMSUS is the premier military med society in the US, I'm sure you've likely run across it, o obviously wasn't sure. If you want more detail, or websites, tell me, I'll gladly give them in here, OK? Elaborate, asmid said, go into more details, any college you've done, ambitions, I'd be most interested in hearing more...also, look up NIBIB, the NIH bioengineering institute, also, you might can't to check FDA and CDC literature, also AHRQ literature on VTC, I'm sure it's a quite current topic, just some research suggestions, OK?