Show Notes
Description
Dr Nathan Rosenberg visits the studio as we consider strategies for making lectures meaningful, engaging, and human. The word “doctor” comes from the Latin docere, meaning “to teach.” Tune in as we explore storytelling, fumbles, performance nerves… and more!
Topic
Strategies for Giving an Engaging Presentation
Learning Objectives
At the end of this activity, participants should be able to:
- Differentiate traditional lectures from lectures designed as learning experiences.
- Analyze the role of storytelling, authenticity, and performance in effective lectures.
- Apply practical strategies for managing fumbles, audience interactions, and Q&A sessions.
- Develop an approach to lecturing that aligns with one’s personality, strengths, and goals.
FD-ED Credit
This episode is approved for FD-ED credit through the Center for Faculty Development at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. FD-ED credit expires 3 years from this episode’s release date.
Guest
Dr Nathan Rosenberg
Associate Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Nationwide Children’s Hospital
The Ohio State University College of Medicine
Links
Center for Faculty Advancement, Mentoring, and Engagement
Additional Episodes with FD-ED Credit
Mentorship and Coaching in Academic Medicine – FAMEcast 001
Teaching on a Busy Clinical Service – FAMEcast 007
The Evolving Role of Artificial Intelligence in Medical Education – FAMEcast 009
Creating Safe, Impactful Space… for Medical Learners! – FAMEcast 016
Episode Transcript
[Dr Mike Patrick]
This episode of FAMEcast is brought to you by the Center for Faculty Advancement, Mentoring, and Engagement at The Ohio State University College of Medicine.
[MUSIC]
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of FAMEcast. We are a faculty development podcast from The Ohio State University College of Medicine.
This is Dr. Mike coming to you from the campus of Ohio State. It’s episode 17. We’re calling this one tips and tricks for an engaging presentation.
I want to welcome all of you to the program. We are so happy to have you with us, and I also want to pause and just say happy new year to everyone. I hope that your holidays were great and you were able to take some time off and spend some quality time with family, friends, and loved ones because we all need a break over the holidays and hopefully you were able to fit one in.
Please do plan a vacation sometime soon because it’s self-care and we really do need that to continue to be great educators in academic medicine. Speaking of education, lecturing is one of the most visible forms of teaching in academic medicine, but many educators struggle with how to make lectures meaningful, engaging, and human. Today we will explore the craft of lectures and presentations, why we teach, how storytelling transforms attention, what it means to humanize ourselves on stage or behind the lectern and how to navigate fumbles, audience questions, and performance nerves.
Whether you love lecturing or dread it, this conversation will hopefully reframe lectures as intentional, artful learning experiences that go far beyond what can be read in a textbook. Of course, in our usual fame cast fashion, we have a terrific guest joining us in the studio to discuss the topic. Dr. Nathan Rosenberg is an associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and with the Ohio State University College of Medicine. I do want to remind you that if your institution or department requires faculty development education credit, also known as FD-ED, we have good news for you. Select episodes of fame cast, ones that deal with teaching and learners come with FD-ED credit from the center for faculty development at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Really easy to claim your credit.
Just listen to the podcast, which you are about to do. Look for the FD-ED link in the show notes. That’s going to be at fame cast.org and this is episode 17. So just look for show notes for episode 17 over at fame cast.org. Follow that link to cloud CME register or sign into your free account. Take a brief survey.
You’ll find that under the materials tab and score the credit. You can even download a transcript of your credits to share with your institution or department. We have had some other episodes with FD-ED credit, and I’ll put a link to all of those in the show notes for you so you can find them easily.
Episode one dealt with mentorship and coaching and academic medicine. Episode seven was teaching on a busy clinical service. Episode nine, the evolving role of artificial intelligence in medical education and then episode 16 creating safe impactful space for medical learners.
And then we will add today’s topic, which again is tips and tricks for an engaging lecture to the list of episodes that we have that do come along with FD-ED credit. Also want to remind you the information presented in every episode of fame cast is for general educational purposes only. And your use of this audio program is subject to the fame cast terms of use agreement, which you can find at fame cast.org.
So, let’s take a quick break. We’ll get Dr. Nathan Rosenberg settled into the studio, and then we will be back to explore tips and tricks for an engaging presentation. It’s coming up right after this.
[MUSIC]
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Dr. Nathan Rosenberg is an associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at the Ohio state university college of medicine. He is also an engaging presenter, which is an essential skill for those of us who teach an academic medicine. Today we are exploring tips and tricks aimed at holding our audience’s interest as we teach and advocate for the health and well-being of our patients.
In medicine. Before we dive into that conversation, let’s offer a warm fame cast. Welcome to our guest, Dr. Nathan Rosenberg. Thank you so much for visiting the studio today.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Well, thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. I’m really excited about this particular topic, especially given that I do give a lot of presentations. So, I’m hoping to learn some nuggets here just right along with the audience.
Let’s start at the beginning with even the word lecture. Like it’s kind of a bad word. Like we don’t want to be lectured, but lectures still happen.
Can you tell us a little bit about why they are still relevant and important?
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s a good question.
There’s, there’s some history there. I think that the lecture used to be, I think in many ways, one of the only mediums for large group teaching, that there was a period of time in medical education where you got everybody in the room and you talk to them or they read a book and that, that it worked. And I’ll say it’s pretty easy.
It’s pretty easy. And, and here we are on a podcast, so we can say out loud, we like to talk.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yes.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Right. And, and so, so it’s, you can take a whole different, a whole set of teachers, medical faculty that need to teach students and say, here’s a medium that you were taught to teach with lecture, do the same thing and listen to the sound of your own voice. And I say that somewhat derogatorily, but also to acknowledge that, that that’s a really easy way to get up and say, I covered all of the content because I said it out loud and maybe I put it to PowerPoint slides in there.
The content will get to the learner. Yeah. Yeah.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
And I think that we still find ourselves presenting in this fashion in academic medicine, because we often have captured audiences. Like we have residents who are at the hospital and they’re taking a lunch break. And so, we can give a talk in a room, whereas, you know, especially since the pandemic more and more education happens virtually and non-synchronous type of education, like podcasts and things that can be evergreen and folks can watch and listen on their own time.
But in academic medicine, we do still find ourselves speaking in front of groups, right?
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Yeah. Yeah, we do. And I think that, that there’s some value there because there’s some value in the asynchronous side of it.
And I think of that example of if I’m in front of a group of residents, for example, and I wonder if they’re thinking in their head, could I have done this at 1.5 speed? Could I have recorded this and gone back and listened to it at 1.5 speed and then bought myself an extra 30 minutes to do whatever I want to do with those 30 minutes. And, and I, I think this is a prime example of it because somebody is listening to this podcast at 1.5 speed. Maybe it’s you, the listener right now. And what we still have is a set of people in front of us. And I think that that creates an opportunity because there’s two different things.
There’s one thing of providing information and we can provide information through all kinds of different mediums. But when you are in front of a crowd of people or when you have a crowd of people in the same room as you, the unique element that’s created there is that you get to perform the content and that that in-person education is just that it’s a performance of content. And if considered that way, I think it changes our frame about it.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. Yeah. And you know, as much as we are both frequent presenters of teaching material, we also sometimes find ourselves being the audience member and the learner.
And there is a definitely a difference between someone who is really performing but getting their point across. So, it’s not like over-the-top performance. It’s an effective performance.
So, an effective performance, there’s, there’s basically ditches on both sides. You can go over the top, but you can also like the sound of your own voice and just be boring as all can be. And then you’re not really paying attention.
You start drifting and I’m thinking maybe I should just check my email. And then, you know, we’ve lost our effectiveness when we just give a dry, boring lecture.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Yeah. And I think, I think you hit both sides of it. And I, I mean, I’ll be honest that I think I’ve been both at times in my career.
I think I’ve been hopefully not a little bit too dry because it’s it, I don’t think I have it in me, but, but, but over the top, certainly a little bit over the top. And I think the lesson that I learned during that process was, was that there’s that middle ground and the middle ground, if you want to define it, and at least this is an opinion, but the middle ground is true engagement. So, so that you’d want somebody to want to be engaged enough that going to their phone would not be a better dopamine release of the experience they’re having right there in front of them, that, that the, the place they are in that room is a better place than what their phone has to offer.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Yeah, absolutely.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
When did you first realize that you enjoyed giving presentations?
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Oh, that’s a good question. It’s, it’s interesting. I think I; I started, I started to realize that I would enjoy it before I enjoyed it.
It was one of these things where I was sitting in a grand rounds, a nationwide children’s grand rounds, watching, watching somebody own an audience in such a good way that maybe owns not the best word, but to, to achieve a level of engagement that was admirable, that person was Lisa Humphrey, who is, who is palliative care physician extraordinaire. And I can tell you the truth. I don’t remember which topic it was because I’ve seen Lisa talk a lot, but what I saw was that Lisa had a hold on people’s emotions and palliative care sets her up for that.
She took it and she grabbed it. It was a skill of hers. And, and I thought in that moment, I would love to do that.
I would love to attach an emotion to a piece of content that I hope people will learn. Because I think that’s one thing stick is when you say, this is why this matters to you as a human. This is why this matters beyond you need to know this in order to practice medicine.
It’s, this is how it feels to experience these things.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
And she nailed it. And I can’t 2016, 2017 around there, but it was, it was right then where I started formulating things in my head. I’m, I’m, I’m excited about this.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. She, so it’s Dr. Lisa Humphrey that we’re talking about, and she has been on some of the pediatric podcasts that I have done in the past. And she is definitely an engaging speaker for sure.
And she uses a lot of storytelling, emotion, you know, cultural references. It almost feels more like attending as I’m not going to say stand up cause it’s not comedy, but like you’re going to a show and you’re a concert even more so than just a lecture, which of course, that’s a common criticism of lectures is that they tend to be more boring, slow, overly detailed, maybe not addressing what the audience really wants or needs can, can happen as well. Right.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Yeah. Yeah. And I feel that way, but you got back to it.
It’s a performance. So, it’s a concert. It could be a play.
It could be something where people have some sort of excitement, the people that are intentionally going there to have a positive experience. It’s more than I need to know this information. It’s wow, this felt fruitful.
This felt meaningful. This feels like it connects directly with what I do, the things that I care about, and it felt personal. And I think that’s the other thing we add in there is that regardless of the size of your audience, people, great performers of content make things feel personal.
They make things that you can, the individual people in the audience can say, I feel like this person who’s performed this content is performing it directly to me.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
And in order to do that, you really have to have a read on who your audience is because how you deliver material that you may be an expert in is going to be very different if it’s lay audience versus it’s learner, medical learners versus your colleagues versus giving a talk at a conference, you know, there’s so many different types of talks, but you really boils down to who is my audience and what are my educational goals and what are my audience needs and how can I match up my goals with their needs in order to make it engaging?
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I, it’s exactly it.
And it’s like, well, okay. If you want to answer those questions, you probably need to answer them before you start or while you’re preparing, or this is the difference between like, let’s say a classical musician and a jazz musician, whereas a classical musician is going to do all their preparation over a period of time. I’m not saying jazz musicians don’t, but that early preparation versus say this metaphor of the jazz musician says, I’m going to feel the room while I’m doing this and respond because I have some more space to do this, respond to the room itself.
And I think there probably needs to be a component of both as you go in there. So, frame things out in your head, don’t have too much structure, probably not too much because you have to be able to adjust to your audience. And then, and I think you mentioned that I was thinking about this time.
There’s golden 10 minutes, five to 10 minutes that occur right before your performance is supposed to start. I’m just calling it a performance now, but, but your, your lecture or your, you’re teaching in front of people starts. This golden 10 minutes is the 10 minutes before with the people that show up a little bit early, or even if you want to start a little bit late because it’s your time and you have some control over that, where you have the option to whoever’s there, go out and talk to them.
Maybe, you know, them, I, for almost every one of these, you know, some of the people in the audience go and feel people out, feel out who they are. Maybe ask them direct questions that there’s somebody in the audience that you know, knows the nature of the rest of the audience. Hey, who’s coming?
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
What are we doing today? Yeah.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. That, that is a great idea. I love that.
You often start lectures with a story. Why is that an important thing and how does that then set the stage for the rest of your presentation?
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Sure. And it’s, it’s strange at this point, it’s not even intentional. It’s like, it’s just a good experience.
Storytelling is another aspect of performance. And, and I think it’s okay to wing the story as you go along, but to say, okay, you are, we are going to engage. So, you’re setting the scene for the people in front of you to say, this is an opportunity for all of us to engage with each other and I could provide you content.
But frankly, humans like stories, humans like actual experiences. And, and so if you could be intentional about it and say, okay, first five minutes of this, I’m going to weave in a story that makes me human that, that, so that you know that the person in front of you is not just a content delivery vehicle, but rather someone that’s human. So, you could show your fallibility.
You could show that you make mistakes just like everybody else. And then you’re leveling the playing field between you and the audience. You could show, bring in some emotional context.
There’s another Lisa Humphrey moment. She’s really good at it. If I’m name dropping, this is fun.
The other name I always drop for great, great teachers as Gary Norris, who, who is really good when he’s teaching people of bringing in this sort of like piece together story about an experience that he had and bringing emotional context really early into a situation, into a teaching opportunity. So, start there with the, this is why this matters before you even say what this is. Yeah.
Yeah.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
And that really does hook the audience in when you, when you tell a story that they can connect with a large piece of presentations in academic medicine is the slide deck. You know, we take time making our slides and it becomes in, you know, the visual aspect of our performance. What are your recommendations and in terms of what those slides ought to sort of look like?
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Yeah. Yeah. Is it okay if I flip the script for a second and ask questions?
Yeah.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
So, so when you think of a great slide, one that’s like, I’m locked in, I got this. What are you, what are the things that you see on there?
[Dr Mike Patrick]
So, so for me, it’s a picture that relates to whatever the person’s talking about. Like if there’s, if there’s words that I have to read and they’re, you know, lots of bullet points, I’m lost.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Yeah. Yeah. And that’s the big one.
It’s a picture. It’s an image. It’s something that can actually be stored beyond text.
We, we have the great joy of, of getting to teach really smart people. And it’s an honor to medical education that every person sitting in front of you has really big skills and can likely read really well. They can.
Right. And the last thing I would ever want to do is read a story to somebody else, unless they asked me to do it. There is that great joy of hearing something like that, but, but reading content to other people, give them a QR code, give them, let them read it.
Right. That, but, but it’s, it’s the images that help nail down the points. It’s true.
And I think that we’ve been taught that forever, that images and PowerPoint are really important. They do not have to be images that directly apply to the situation. I don’t know that stock images are, I mean, they’re better than nothing.
But bring in a reference that helps people feel like there’s a real thing in there. Bring in a movie reference, bring in a music reference, bring in a clinical image. That’s poignant, but it can be pretty much anything besides a text filled screen, a little detail there.
If you, if you, if you need to use smaller than 30-point fonts, you put too much content on there. And if you feel like people need to read it to understand it, then you put too much content on there too.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. I like to use the pictures as, of course, something interesting, but then it also is a reminder to me of what I’m going to talk about. And so, as I practice my talk and, or give it, you know, over and over again, you start to know what the narrative is for that particular picture.
And that kind of helps keep you on track without necessarily having to refer to the PowerPoint notes on the presenter view.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. And I think, I think you get right there to a certain point, which is some great joy here.
There’s this difference between practice and rehearsal.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Yeah. We’ll keep getting back to musicians. And maybe that’s a personal thing for me that the, a lot of the ability to capture people’s hearts comes in, comes in that kind of performance.
But, but the difference here between practice and rehearsal is, is rehearsal would be if you had a script and you’re going to go on with a script and you’re going to rehearse it to make sure that you nail the tone and the content and you hit it in order and you’re reading off your note cards. Again, if you’re reading to somebody, something they can already read, then just let them read it versus, versus the, the practice, which is this is how I’m going to engage with my audience in different situations. So, you practice in front of different audiences, you practice to yourself.
But the idea is you’re setting yourself up to pivot with your audience when you practice. And when you rehearse, if you’re just going to read something to somebody, it ends up being a little bit more, I would say a little bit more dull, a little bit less engaging.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
I do want to talk about musicians that you enjoy their, the way that they perform and how that connects to academic medicine. But before we do that real quick, going back to images on slides, a lot of folks wonder about copyright and you know, if you’re giving a presentation like at a conference, they want to make sure this is original material and you’re not infringing on anyone’s work. How do you balance out using images that are going to connect with the audience, but still thinking about those as someone’s work?
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Yeah. Good question. A few things there.
The first part, specifically with images is that, that we all have cameras and phones now we have a stock of images that might be really useful to show. And we may not think we do, but you end up looking through your phone and just say, oh, is this interesting? And will somebody find some interest in it?
If it’s yours, it’s a lot easier to put up there. And your cat counts. Yeah, it does.
And this is coming from a guy who doesn’t, I first understood cats like six months ago or three months ago or something. But before that in my life, I’ve never understood a cat in my life, but your cat counts because it makes you human. And so, the first part is trying to not use copyrighted material.
The other part is certainly knowing your rules and then work within them. And I feel like what is the greatest time when people want to get the issues with copyright and they have issues with that is where credit doesn’t go where credit is due. And so if you are, if you’re citing work and crediting where credit the human, because humans like to be credited for it, that gives you a chance to launch a story too, probably over to launch a human experience to say, Hey, I’m, I’m one person up here communicating in front of you, sharing with you, the works of everybody else and all of these people.
And so, understand that, that while I may be the one that’s trying to share it and communicate it, these are, these are the successes of other people. I think we run into issues with copyright when, when you don’t get to highlight the successes of other people and make sure, they know it and don’t tell you that there’s very little that we actually have to take credit for ourselves when we’re teaching.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, that’s really, really great points. There are also a lot of services now that do have stock images that allow you, especially for nonprofit educational kind of presentations, they’re absolutely fine for you to use. I’m thinking of services like Canva, for example, if you have a subscription, then the people who created any images and artwork are getting at least a little cut from your, from your subscription fee.
Of course you want to read all the licensing stuff, but I love looking at your own photo album on your phone. I hadn’t even really considered that, but as I’m going to in the future, because there probably are worthwhile photos that I’ve taken that could be used in lectures.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
I promise. I promise. And here, here’s, here’s one of these situations of know your audience.
I, I, I, and I, excuse me as I do this, this will be fun. I, I, one of these aspects of knowing your audience is really knowing who you’re talking to. And it’s really important to figure that out.
And every once in a while, you may, maybe before you reach an audience, need to do a little bit of sleuthing, need to be like, hey, give me some information about somebody that, that is going to be in the audience. So, it’s going to be there. Give me an information, some information about this crowd because I want them to know that I care about them and the individual things that are important to them.
So, so Mike, my suspicion is you probably have some photos from Disney from your most recent Disney trip. I’m guessing that, that would really engage an audience. Is that, is that possibly true?
[Dr Mike Patrick]
A hundred percent.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Yeah. And so that, that right there, and I, this would be like a separate, separate conversation for a separate podcast, but, but that came from sleuthing. Yeah.
I mean, I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that before last week. And again, like maybe a side conversation I’d love to hear more, but I, but I did, I did hear from a certain bird that you’ve got some passion for Disney and I’m like, that’s cool.
I like that. Yes. Yes.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
No, I would definitely Disney and cats. So, we have, we have two, we have two cats and they are both very photogenic. So, I think my, my next presentation I give is going to have to have at least one of Carmen.
Carmen is her name.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
And it makes sense.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yes. Well, you know what though? It actually Carmen is Spanish for song and she’s very vocal.
And so that’s really how she got her name. And then the whole Carmen Ohio thing, of course ties into, but she’s, she’s a wonderful little, little kitty.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Yeah. No, I’m expecting screenshots or something. Someone gets a photo of you in front of an audience with Carmen.
It’s going to make my day.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
So, from, from kitties to musicians, who are some of the musicians that you have sort of connected with and sort of model your teaching after their musical performances and how does that, how does that match up?
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Yeah. So, so the first time I got a chance to teach this teaching thing, I had an audience of the Ohio state fame group, and it was, it was my first go to learn how to do this and just gave it a, gave it a first shot. And, and my hope was, and I invited this too.
I always do. Hey, let’s talk afterwards. If you want to ask a question in front of the crowd, I love that.
Do it during the whole talk. Don’t wait until the end. And also, if you don’t feel like doing that, let’s talk afterwards.
And that works too. And so, after I finished, there’s a row of people standing there who had questions and, and they were all the same question. Actually, it was the same people who didn’t want to speak in front of the crowd, and they were all the introverts.
And they, they came up and they said, well, you’re clearly an extrovert and I’m not. And so, so what do I do with this? So, so you, what you’re saying is here a bunch of tools to be really extroverted in front of an audience and show your skills in that way and use your natural extrovert tendencies.
And what does an introvert do? And so, I went back and I in my head and I said, well, teaching in front of people as a performance, well, who are my performers that that perform well in front of an audience who can own my heart in front of an audience who are clearly introverted. And I had to go back and Google and make sure they actually said in some interview that they’re introverted.
This is confirmed now, but there were three that came to mind in my head and, and they are, they do all three of them do it a different way. And so, the three that came to mind were number one, Nora Jones, to the jazz pianist, Nora Jones and Nora, Nora is, she keeps to herself. I mean, in a lot of ways, I mean, she can, she sings big and she plays big, but you can tell she sort of likes to keep a little bit of secrecy there and that soft voice.
Right. And, and I think that the, what she does is she takes on a crowd with some degree of mystery as, and she’s always foreshadowing something in there, but she’s not going to tell you everything right away. And she does it right when she comes on stage, you can tell that she’s going to hold some stuff back and then let it out slowly.
And so, what does that mean for the medical educator? It means that you can do the same thing. You can walk out there, and you can show them that you’re introverted and, and drop a little bit, tell a short story, something like that, but say there’s more coming here.
Or even this foreshadow. If you four, if you start, if you’ve got an hour in front of a crowd and you’re going to within those first five minutes, you start telling a story, you say, hey, let me tell you the rest of the story. Don’t let me forget.
It’s at the end of this, but I’ll tell you later. Right. And she does this musical foreshadowing thing.
So, take that. You can take that thing introverts or extroverts and foreshadow. Hey, the end of this story or the important point here, I’m going to tell you later.
I got some slides about it. It’s like slide 25. I’ll get there.
And then people are saying, okay, I I’m locked into this. Cause I don’t want to miss that. Bill Frizzell, the great Bill Frizzell, jazz guitarist.
He, he will not face the crowd. You can’t even see his fingers on the fret board. And, and as a, as a bad jazz guitarist, I want to see what he’s doing.
Cause he’s so good. Doesn’t talk to crowds, doesn’t do a thing and communicates musically with such passion with the music that he makes. And so, he’s like the classic dynamic guitar player who creates his emotion and does it without showing a thing and will actually turn his body towards his band and away from away from an audience and for, for whole shows.
And he has, he takes these little moments where he does, he stops and he talks. And it’s like, you’re getting coffee with him, regardless of the size of the audience.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
That is awesome. I love that.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Yeah. And that’s the thing is that what he’s doing specifically is he’s almost withholding something that we all want to hear. We only want to know more from Bill Frizzell.
And then the second you see him, he starts to open his mouth. You’re like, everybody’s checked right in. And so, what does that do for the medical educator?
It says, wow, this is a person that’s earned our respect, hopefully. And, and we want to know what they had to say and they’re going to choose what they share with us over time. They’re going to pick it.
We could just talk about music forever, but Ray LaMontagne is similarly shy. And he owns it. And it’s a, and so he says shy.
Those are, those are, if I remember right, some things about just being shy with an audience. It’s not as much nervous as in like, I, I, I just did not want to throw too many words in front of them. And that’s an interesting point for a teacher that is naturally an introvert in front of an audience where humanizing yourself is really important.
I don’t think that people want a perfect teacher in front of them. I don’t think that they want a faultless teacher in front of them. They want them, they want somebody in front of them that makes that most similar to them.
So, in that case, I think we can all say we’re all flawed. And, and sometimes seeing the chips in somebody’s arm or seeing somebody’s flaws is, is, has some of the greatest value. So, it is completely irrational to say, Hey, I’m up here in front of you guys.
I’m really passionate about this topic. I’m also introverted and I’m also nervous and just say it straight up. So, bear with me, stick with me because I do think this is important.
And I’m glad I’m here and that, that this is not my natural inclination. And then all of a sudden you get the chances to, to get people to give you some slack. But also, I think as, if somebody does that in the audience, I’m like, what can I do to support them right now?
What can I do to make them feel like they’re, they’re just rolling along? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
I will say that I, but believe it or not, I feel like I’m an introvert. And what I notice is that I can do public speaking and I give presentations a lot. And in fact, sometimes in front of very large crowds, but it’s exhausting.
And I think that that’s where the extrovert, like they get energy from giving presentations and introverts suck in energy in order to give that performance. And so, I would just encourage other introverts out there that it is definitely rewarding once you put yourself out there, but, but it is going to be exhausting most likely.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Yeah. Yeah. As I’m married to a fantastic introvert myself and one that, yeah, I think you nailed it right there.
Like there’s something to be loved about that experience with people that introverts don’t want to avoid people. It just drains them. Yes.
Some of the best insights you’ve ever gave me and tell me if this is right or not from me, from your side. But what she said to me is that that preparatory introversion is the best thing to allow her to tolerate extroversion. So, it’s that like she, she makes her own time to be by herself before she knows she has to extrovert.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. That’s the self-care and preparing yourself and then, you know, do something fun for yourself afterward as well. Yeah.
The recovery. Yeah. Yeah.
That’s, that’s going to be really important. That’s why I podcast. Like I have thousands of people listening, but it’s really just you and me right now.
So, it’s the, the podcast thing for, for an introvert who also loves teaching podcasts are a great way to go.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
That’s fascinating. So, so, so, because I guess I, I, because I having listened to these podcasts before that I would have assumed that you were, you were an extrovert or that you, that you were choosing extroverted audience. So, you’re, you, so what tool, and I’m trying to figure out how we can, how I could translate this because I gave you the musicians tools, but I’m like, I want this Dr. Mike tool now. What, what is it that fuels your introverted side about, about the podcast?
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah, I think it’s really preparing well. So really intentionally thinking about the questions and then sort of some bullet point answers that I think might be relevant so that then I have something to refer to but not necessarily read from. And so then by having that preparation, I think that gives me the confidence to interview someone who is a content expert, but that I can still sort of keep up.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
That makes a lot of sense. Okay, cool. Yeah.
So, then that, I think that you you’re like underlying that point about practice versus rehearsal, where, yeah, yeah this is more of a practice thing that you’re saying is, is not unlike our practice of medicine that we, we take curve balls all the time and work with them. And so, the preparation is what gets you there.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
And then, you know, I, I started out in podcasting like 20 years ago because my first job when I was 10 years old was as a disc jockey at a skating rink. And so, when podcasts came out, it was like, oh, that would be kind of cool. And so then, but it was sort of nerve wracking.
I mean, I like listened to every podcast I could find on how to do podcasts so that I would feel comfortable putting one together. And, and just like anything, you know, once you get past that discomfort and you just keep doing it and doing it and doing it, it really does become second nature. And that’s why people who listen would assume I’m an extrovert, but it’s just not true.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Yeah. Yeah. You practice, you practice, you have the toolbox, you created the toolbox to do it.
Yeah. And let’s hope, let’s hope that this gives confidence to people who will say, I hate talking in front of a crowd. I don’t wait, let me rechange my tone for people who say appropriately, it’s difficult for me to talk in front of a crowd because of a list of a list of reasons why, but that I think that this is the case in point that you’re sharing right here, which is that if you build your toolbox, it’s not going to feel that bad.
Yeah, that’s right. That’s right.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
But it takes some, you know, it definitely takes some practice and overcoming your fears and just going for it and realizing that you really are impacting other people in a positive way, you know, through your, through your teaching. I want to ask about a couple of other techniques. One is the audience plant.
Have you, so I have never done that before. Have you done that? Yeah.
And how, how does that work? How do you, how do you set that up?
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
It’s so fun. It’s so fun. And I, I’m not saying everybody needs to do it, but, but I, I do it almost every time.
I don’t have a plan for this podcast. I did consider it, but it’s really, really hard to just do it in the case that you know your audience well, or know somebody, or even if you invite somebody that you care about in general, we know somebody in our audience and, and we want a lot of audience interaction. I mean, I think the dream education session is one where the audience talks more than the person in with the microphone in front of them.
So, the, that more than 50% of the content is coming from, I’ll never be an absolute expert because I think that people have no matter what I’m talking about ever, somebody has got an idea for me out there. Right? So, I don’t think I’m anywhere near an expert at anything, but that the topic that I’m set to teach, somebody knows something I don’t know yet.
And so, one way to let people know that they can just make noise in an audience. And that’s my opinion is make noise, start talking, start a conversation is to plant somebody in the audience to make some noise early on or somewhere in there. And so, there’s what I would call, there’s like the clearly intentional plants.
And then there’s like the sleuthy, sneaky plant and they both have value. So, the clearly intentional plant is where you stick somebody in the audience to ask a question out of nowhere, right? Not even the Q and A sessions.
You can save it till the end, but I generally prefer not to ask a question out of nowhere that lines you up to just nail a plate. So, it’s just a slow pitch up the middle. There are a few things there.
If that’s going to happen, you see, you tell them which slide they finished the slide, and then they ask the question. You can ask a friend to do it. And that sets you up to answer the question, which makes you look cool.
No, I don’t know if that’s why you do it, but what, what it does I think for a teacher is it’s anchoring. So, there’s a time points in this teaching session where you have an opportunity where you know, something’s going to happen. You know there’s going to be an interaction and it’s already practiced.
That one’s actually pretty rehearsed, but it’s already there. It’s built in. And so, you get to model that people can interact and you get somebody to ask you about your content.
So, my favorite and first one ever, there’s another podcast that I’ve done that that came out of university of Vermont and the guy that did the podcast with, I got to do grand rounds at university of Vermont college of medicine, my, my alma mater. And, and I had him ask a question to the guy’s name is Jeremy Altman. He’s super cool.
He’s an anesthesia resident now. And he did, he does a podcast about what people did during their gap time between undergraduate medical school and how that shaped them as a learner or as a physician. Super cool stuff.
But I had him ask the question and he asked the question and then I answered it and then I said, hey, thanks for asking that question. My next slide was just published promoting his podcast completely unrelated to the grand rounds topic. So that was just like a people, everybody’s going to know I planted them in the audience and I’m fine with it.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Cause it may be, it may be helpful for them to know that because otherwise they might think he was rude. This wasn’t the time to ask a question.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Yeah, exactly. Also, I’ll say though, I like to start out by humanizing really early and say, hey, I hope this is a conversation. I don’t need to be the one to talk in front of you early on when your voice, when you feel like you’re ready for your voice to be heard, just do it.
Don’t wait until the end for questions. If I hear it, if I hear you, it’s better than not hearing you. So, I set the stage for that early on usually.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
So, they really have an invitation to be a part of the presentation.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Yeah. Interactive, interactive. And nearly everything else has some degree of interaction at this point because of the nature of our media.
And so especially our young learners are, are interested in interacting and being a part of their education as opposed to just a consumer. Yeah. So, it winds things up.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
When you, when you invite folks to ask questions as you go along, I think a lot of presenters would fear what those questions may be. And for a lot of people, the Q and A at the end is sort of the most nerve-wracking part because you’re up on stage as the content expert and you may get thrown a question that you have no idea what the answer is. Is that okay?
How do you deal with that? Good question.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
That’s a good question. Yeah. I love this.
And I think that this comes back to our conversation about practice and preparation to some degree. I break down questions in my head to four types of questions and then I feel like I have four prepared types of responses for those questions. And so, the first type is I actually have a question about your content that I hope you can answer.
That’s, that’s the best. And we know those aren’t the ones that we’re worried about because it’s something we’re passionate about.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yes.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
And the, the two possible answers there are either number one, here’s your answer or number two. That’s a really good question. I don’t have a detailed answer for you.
Let’s be in touch afterwards because I think there’s more conversation there. So, you sort of punt it to say, that’s really cool. Show your humility and that you don’t have that answer, but that’s, that’s workable, right?
The content based one. There’s another one where people come up and they want to attack and just be honest that in, in academic medicine, sometimes people come up and they want to attack and, and whether they’re doing that to, to hear the sound of their own voice, that’s a separate kind. So, it’s not really bad.
The attack more so is, is oftentimes I think founded in people’s insecurity in their own work or the formal disagreement, or there’s a lot of reasons why people do it. And I think that, that if you’re going to have a canned response, when you feel like you’re being attacked in a situation, I know this sounds wild, but it’s totally rational to, to validate someone’s attack initially when they do it, it’s totally okay. Unless you’ve got like a slam dunk defense for it, where it’s like, hey, let me go back to slide 12.
I I’ll show you, right? Like if you’ve got a slam dunk, go back to it. If you don’t have a slam dunk and somebody’s coming in to attack you, it looks horrible.
I’m sorry for them. It looks horrible. It happens all the time in academic medicine.
I understand that, but they’ve already put themselves on a foot below you. You’re the one with the mic in front. And so, it’s completely valid to just kind of repeat their attack back to them and say, don’t you think that this is meaningless research?
You repeat the back and say, okay, what I heard from you just now is that that you’re wondering if I feel like the research is meaningless. And I, thanks for the question. And I think I need to think more deeply about this certainly.
And I don’t have a direct answer for you for that question.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. Yeah. And you can say, let’s connect off stage at some point in the future.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
For that. Yeah. Which there’s a little bit separate entity from people who, who want to hear the sound of their own voice, which is not necessarily attack or not.
And that can be awkward. I think that’s really the situation. It’s not like it’s negative as much as it’s just an awkward situation because what they’re looking to do is make themselves visible.
And, and the way that I, in terms of my preparation for those people, if they want to make themselves visible, I’m okay with that. And, and so I get to bring it back to them. So, they’re, they ask you a question that’s clearly them wanting to tell you the answer.
Let them tell you the answer. Right. So, they have to be a question about your content is a question that then they really want to tell you, you say, oh, that’s cool.
I, I’ve just started thinking about this. It’s a great one, but I also know that you’re an expert on this topic and, and I’m hoping that you can share with me, because I think that this audience is probably going to learn more from you than from me about this one thing. Yeah.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
And that shows the humility. And that also goes back to making you more of a human and a likable presenter by just speaking the truth and being transparent.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Yeah. And then there’s the, as I think about the fourth type of question that I prepare for is, is the curve ball, like the, like, I have no idea where this question came from. I can’t even apply it to what we’ve just been doing together.
And, and so, and it does happen. And it’s kind of a weird situation where you’re just kind of looking at them for a little bit and you’re trying to figure it out. The, the, the thing I have canned in my head to, to prepare for that is first to ask for a rewording gently to say, help me out.
I’m not totally understanding your question. Do you think you could do it in different words? And, and that doesn’t always work, which is fine.
That’s okay. It doesn’t always work. And then the next thing if that doesn’t work is to look into the audience and to say, okay, I still need a little bit of help, but I think somebody in here gets your question.
And so can somebody else jump up to a mic and just help us coalesce on this, help us come together. One or two situations occurs, either somebody jumps on a mic and helps clarify it. Cause I’m maybe I’m that dense or alternatively, if nobody in the audience answers the question, I think the situation is resolved itself.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
That, that is so interesting to me that you prepare for those kinds of, of questions. So that, that is some intentionality on your part. Like before you give a particular talk, you sort of think through what people might ask you and sort of prepare ahead.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Yeah. Good question. I don’t know if I necessarily do it for content.
For the individual content for the talk, as much as I do it for a category for the four, the four categories, the four questions is a different thing. What are the four questions? But, but the, the four types of questions that I think that the preparation is more question type than it is content specific.
My, the people that I admire the most in academic medicine are the ones that gracefully say, I don’t know. Yeah. And that, that boy, you know, early in my career, when the ones that said, I don’t know, and said it with such amazing humility, that’s the moments I’m sitting there saying, I want to be like that.
I want, I want to be that wise physician who knows how to say, I don’t know in the right setting. And that’s, that’s so commonly either you have the answer or you gracefully say, you don’t know. Yeah.
And if, if you do well, you’re lifting yourself and your, your visibility in a good way.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
And you can say, I don’t know, but let me, let me find the answer and then let’s talk about it later. And then that’s also going to help you learn the material better because they may have a very valid point that you hadn’t considered. And then by researching it and looking it up, it’s just going to add to your own knowledge for the next time you give that presentation.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Yeah. Yeah. And I think maybe if I take it further, what, what my, my mentors showed was not, it was a two-step thing.
It’s, I don’t know. And I care.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yes.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Yes. Yeah.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Even at bedside teaching, that’s also important to, to, you know, say, I, I don’t know, but let’s look it up together, you know, and, and learn together. And I think that does humanize you when you, you know, don’t act like I know everything and you don’t, you know, you’re below me. That’s just, that doesn’t work in terms of effective teaching.
Fallibility. So as, as we wrap up and this has been a fascinating conversation and I’ve already am looking forward to my next live presentation because you’ve already given me so many ideas. I love this.
This is cool. What final advice would you give folks who really want to elevate their lecturing? Where do you start?
Cause we talked about a lot of different things, and it may be difficult to incorporate all of them right out of the gate. Like what, what where’s a good place to start doing better with our lectures?
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Yeah. Yeah. So beyond, beyond that of putting tools in your toolbox, which happens over time.
So, pull the things that you find useful from what we just talked about. I think the greatest thing is to take, find your mentors, find your open minded, openhearted mentors, the ones that you think do it really well and that you can identify with and humbly ask them to support you. And, and I, I, yeah, I named mine.
I mean, I named two of my big ones. There are a few others out there where I requested the support. I also, oh, I, we had some fellows in our, in our pediatric rehabilitation department that were just blunt with feedback in such a good way.
So, trainee feedback. And I said, hey, I’m working on this teaching session. It was the first grand rounds I did at children’s.
I’m working on this teaching session. Can we, can, can you just sit and can we just work on this? And I want you to just tear me apart because I know you will.
And this is the great Dr. Elizabeth Barton now at UNC. And, and she just ripped me to shreds for my first grand rounds. Oh, I was great.
You gave her permission to do that. Yeah, no. And, and we had, I mean the, we had a trusting educational relationship where I requested it, but, but pick the person that you trust to rip you to shreds.
And sometimes it’s a trainee that’s blunt. We have them. We know them.
I was one the, the person that say, okay, I, I would appreciate it. Hopefully you’ll do get some learning out of this too. But I bet there are times when, when I have blinders on and I think he can show me them.
And, and she showed me so many individual blinders. I had no clue the things that was missing. It was a lot of likes, slow down.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Yeah. You know, your content better than your audience. So, you can’t say it that fast and the, get that feedback from someone that you trust.
Another person in my situation is my spouse, my Katie, my wife. Like, like if you really want to know your blind spots, find them there. And I think for the speaker, the teacher, the teacher in front of people, my hope is what that generates is to say, man, I thought this was good.
I was given more tools just now to make it better. So, this thing I thought was good or okay. And average now is better because of the feedback that I had.
And so, it’s something I also, I really like teaching in front of crowds. And so, it’s something I often do at the end is to say, I really like doing this. And so, and I really like doing podcasts too.
So please invite me to do it again. I like this. I’m free.
Like I, and, and so that applies in the same situation where I also like mentorship, academic mentorship. So, if you’re out there in same world and listening to this podcast and you want to, you want to try this on somebody, then try it on me and I’m findable through conventional academic means. So, send me a blind email and let’s do it.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yeah. I love that because feedback is so much a part of clinical teaching, you know? So, if you look at it as when we’re at the bedside and we’re giving learners feedback, we want feedback from our learners as we elevate our teaching skills.
This is really a natural extension of that. Like we, we are used to getting feedback on teaching. And so, we just need to also think about it in, in the way that presenting and you’re going to give me feedback and we’re all going to learn from this. I love that.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
The raw form, right? Like, yes, yes.
That’s right. Help, help me. If this thing feels raw and we want it to feel a little bit that we want to round some of the edges on, on this, the, that yeah.
Blunt, blunt direct feedback in that case. Invited, invited to that guy. Yeah.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yes. Yes. Very, very important.
Well, this has been a fantastic conversation. I’m going to have to have you back to talk about physical medicine stuff on my other podcasts.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
Let’s do it. Let’s do it. Yeah.
I would love to. I’ve got a few fun topics that maybe we talk about off the air.
[Dr Mike Patrick]
Yes, that’s right. Exactly.
So once again, Dr. Nathan Rosenberg associate professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and the Ohio State University College of Medicine. Thank you so much for stopping by and chatting with us today.
[Dr Nathan Rosenberg]
It’s been quite a pleasure. Thanks.
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[Dr Mike Patrick]
We are back with just enough time to say thanks once again to all of our listeners.
Thank you so much for tuning in and we’ll see you next time. And of course, this one today on tips and tricks for giving impactful presentations and we’ll put links to all of those in the show notes for this episode. Again, number 17 over at famecast.org.
We also have additional resources you can find on our website. If you head over to famecast.org and click on the resources tab up at the top, a couple of links that are really worthwhile to faculty development modules on scarlet canvas. One set is on advancing your clinical teaching and the other set is FD for me or faculty development for medical educators.
And again, you’ll find both of those under the resources tab at the top of the page over at famecast.org. A couple of other podcasts that I want to tell you about. If you are a pediatric provider, PediaCast CME it’s a podcast for pediatric professionals.
We offer free category one continuing medical education credit for those who listen. And that includes physicians, but also nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, pharmacists, psychologists, social workers, and dentists shows and details are available at the landing site for that program. PediaCast CME.org.
You can also listen wherever podcasts are found. Simply search for PediaCast CME and then you may be a medical professional, but if you’re not in pediatrics and you are a parent, certainly there are lots of things in the pediatric medical world that you may not be aware of, but we do have an evidence-based podcast for moms and dads. I want to tell you about over at nationwide children’s lots of pediatricians and other medical providers.
Also tune in as we interview pediatric and parenting experts shows are available at the landing site for that program, which is PediaCast.org. Also available wherever podcasts are found. Simply search for PediaCast.
Thanks again for stopping by. And until next time, this is Dr. Mike saying, stay focused, stay balanced, and keep reaching for the stars. So long, everybody.
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