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Ask the expert: How can we make our grand rounds more engaging?

Medical Staff Leader Connection, February 3, 2011

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Set ground rules for speakers to make grand rounds more interesting. “The current generation needs constant stimulation. It isn’t good or bad; it just is, and the idea of sitting for a 55-minute lecture with the lights down and a PowerPoint on is stifling,” says Robert Wachter, MD, MHM, professor and associate chair of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

To engage physicians in grand rounds, UCSF set some ground rules for all of its grand rounds speakers. The first rule is that speakers are not allowed to show their first slide for the first three minutes of the presentation. Rather, they must spend that time telling the audience who they are, why the topic they are presenting is important to them, what got them interested in their field in the first place, and an anecdote that reveals something personal.

“You see the speaker’s humanity in a way that you’ve never seen before. People don’t do this because they are embarrassed and they think it is too personal, but once you give them permission to do it, you find that what they have to say is funny and poignant,” says Wachter.

The second rule is that speakers must end their presentations with 15 minutes to spare for the audience to ask questions.

This week’s tip is from “Give grand rounds a makeover, engage physicians: Strategies from the UCSF department of medicine” in the February issue of Medical Staff Briefing.

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