The Quality of Medical Resident PowerPoint® Presentations

Objective: PowerPoint® software is the most common method of presenting information among physicians. As such it offers an opportunity to evaluate the technical quality of medical resident presentations and assess for change in quality over residency training. To date there is no literature on objective evaluation of the technical quality of PowerPoint® presentations by residents. This study sought to create a metric to evaluate the technical quality of medical resident PowerPoint® presentations, and measure changes in that quality during training. Materials and Methods: A grading scheme for evaluating the technical quality of PowerPoint® presentations was generated after a literature review. In the spring of 2016 military family medicine residency program directors and chief residents were invited to participate. Participant programs submitted PowerPoint® presentations for evaluation. Presentations were de-identified and graded. Results: A total of fifteen residency programs were contacted and two presentations solicited, with a total possible response rate of thirty PowerPoint® presentations. Five programs responded, with a total of nine presentations out of a potential thirty, giving us a 30% response rate. Of these PowerPoint® presentations the mean score out of 100 was 86% with a range of 78-92%. Conclusion: Our grading scheme provides an objective method to evaluate the technical quality of PowerPoint® presentations. Resident PowerPoint® presentations are above an expected average level of technical quality. Our preliminary data suggest that training programs do not improve technical PowerPoint® presentation skills, and may not be interested in evaluation the technical quality of their resident presentations.