Lectures

I just wanted to record that this has been a really full-on week for me.
I volunteered to do a Friday Morning meeting lecture (usually attended by surgeons, cardiologists, Cath lab nursing staff, junior physicians, etc etc).  My talk was about Pacemaker functions that mimic malfunction.  I was exited about the topic, because I found it very interesting, and I knew it was very applicable for anyone who looks at ECG's on the cardiac ward.  It was a good way to introduce some of the modern algorhythms that offer clinical benefit to patients, but which can also make the surface ECG look confusing.
My favourite slide was this one:

The newer device may not be smaller, and it may not have a longer lasting battery, but it does things the older style device could only dream of.  Pacemakers have similarly evolved over the last decade or so.

I started with some very basic and extremely obvious ECG examples of real pacemaker malfunction, which would have been a good review for those watching who had only a basic knowledge.  I tried really hard then to introduce the fancy algorhythms in English, in terms of the malfunctions they can imitate.  Examples were grouped: pacing when it looked like it shouldn't, not pacing when it looked like it should, pacing too fast and pacing too slow.  I mostly showed the ECG's first and got the audience to try and guess what was going on.  I was pleased that the cardiologists participated in this.  Often they are known to just heckle.

I got some good feedback.  the echocardiographers said that they were suprised they could actually understand most of what I said, which is great feedback considering that pacing is quite a specialised area.  I got good direct feedback from one of the cardiologists, who said he wished he was more involved with pacemakers.  One of the cleaners passed on feedback she had heard.  All the registrars gave me a thumbs-up and one of them reported that another cardiologist had said it was exellent.  A couple of nurses commented also.  For me, feedback is like food.  It kills me if I don't get it.  I agonise after this sort of effort unless the feedback is positive: it is worse than my pre-presentation nerves.  I am writing here that I got good feedback, because it will reassure me later.  That's just the way I am.

My talk was complicated by having no laptop and a computer that couldn't do "presenter view".  This meant I had to start my talk while a registrar finished printing my presentation notes, handing them to me a few minutes into the talk.  I think I coped okay with that, but it was stressful.

My second talk was to a group of nurses and, unexpectedly, a group of about a dozen students who had no knowledge of ECG's.  Whoa, that was fun.  Explaining basic ECG's and all the pacing requiring arrhythmias in the most familiar language I could possibly construct takes effort.  It is good to be able to do that though, as we all need to talk to patients in a clear and simple way.  You can get a lot of complicated understanding across if you use familiar concepts - I compare the heart to a 2 level football stadium and to a car.  I got good feedback on that too.

All this required some extremely late nights.  There was no way that I was going to front the first talk in particular with anything less than a perfectly prepared presentation.  I worked on it for hours.  Twice till 2am and once till 3.  Worth it though.