Development and Evaluation of a Presenter Coaching Program at an Academic Surgical Conference

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Surgical Training
• Academic Conferences

Background:

• Conference presentations are crucial for research dissemination and professional development.
• Suboptimal presentation quality at academic conferences is a common issue.
• A need exists for structured support to improve presentation skills among trainees.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design, implement, and evaluate a presentation coaching program for oral presenters at the American Pediatric Surgical Association (APSA) Annual Meeting.
• To assess the feasibility and participant satisfaction with a coaching program utilizing senior society members as volunteer coaches.
• To compare presentation quality between trainees who participated in the coaching program and those who did not.

Main Methods:

• The program paired 26 oral presenters (trainees) with 24 senior APSA member coaches for unstructured coaching sessions.
• Coaching typically involved one to two video calls prior to the conference.
• Presentation scores were assigned by program committee members, and participant/non-participant perspectives were gathered via an online survey.

Main Results:

• 92.3% of participants were trainees; 94.1% reported extreme satisfaction with the coaching program.
• Most participants (82.4%) met with coaches via video call, usually once or twice.
• No significant difference in presentation scores was observed between coached trainees (3.88 ± 0.45) and uncoached trainees (3.79 ± 0.51).

Conclusions:

• A volunteer coaching program leveraging senior society members is a feasible and highly regarded method to support conference presenters, especially trainees.
• Participants valued the opportunity to connect with experienced senior society members.
• While satisfaction was high, the program's impact on objective presentation scores requires further investigation.