The End

The research is over! This week marked the final presentations for AP Research students and the end of our research projects. After delivering two practice presentations last week under 10 minutes in length (the range we were aiming for was 15-20 minutes), I added another 10 slides to my powerpoint and managed to bring my final presentation up to over 16 minutes. After a morning spent frantically searching for my suit and getting in a few last minute practices, I was relieved to see that I would be giving my presentation in front of only three teachers, two of whom I knew very well.

My presentation went fairly well, and aside from stumbling on my words a few times (say “PCA pump prescription protocol for physicians prescribing pumps to patients” five times fast) and glancing at the clock on the wall every minute or two I think I did as well as I could have. I was well prepared for my oral defense and knew all of my sources by heart, from the information in each source and how it was used to the credibility of each source’s author.

My study’s conclusion, that physicians are not currently doing a sufficient job screening out patients who could suffer ill effects from PCA pump usage, revealed the need for some sort of solution, such as a prescription protocol that physicians could use to properly screen out at-risk patients (my initial planned solution just based on the literature). Asking physicians about the feasibility of such a protocol in a healthcare environment quickly caused me to ditch this solution, as 75% of my respondents believed such a protocol would be an “undue burden” on their work. Thankfully, the short answer questions of my survey allowed me to find an alternative solution to PCA pump prescription errors, increased physician education.

After looking further into the solution proposed by my survey respondents, I found that this solution has failed in the past. After already losing my initial solution (a prescription protocol) due to its lack of feasibility, I was determined to find an aspect of increased physician education that could serve as a viable solution. I found that in the early 2000’s, when healthcare organizations first attempted to lower PCA mortality rates with increased education, they took a very passive approach to this education, creating booklets and videos that physicians could choose to seek out if they desired more information about prescribing PCA pumps. Since this attempt at education didn’t work, and many of my survey respondents still continue to call for increased education today, I believe a more active approach to physician education could find more success. This approach, which could consist of mandatory training for PCA pump prescribers and opioid medication providers in general, will hopefully aid physicians in identifying patients who should not be given PCA pumps.

A solution to this problem could save millions of dollars per year for taxpayers, hospitals, and patients and hopefully work to lower the high mortality rate of PCA pump errors, which currently rides at over four times that of any other medication related error.

Thank you for reading my blog posts and following my research!

WORD COUNT: 533

Practice Presentation Reflection

This last week I gave my first practice presentation, which was recorded and sent back to me for analysis. With one more chance to practice this Saturday (before the final presentation next week), I spent most of my time working this week to fix up my presentation. While I had few problems regarding my presentation skills, I had much more to add in terms of my presentation’s content, specifically in my methodology/discussion and use of visual aids.

Unfortunately, I have a tendency to talk very quickly during presentations (likely due to nerves). During my recorded practice presentation, I managed to turn the presentation that took my 16-18 minutes normally into a 9 minute presentation. While this puts my far short of the 15-20 minute time frame, it also means I have a lot of room left to incorporate more material into my slides. Besides this speed reading, the only other problem with my presentation skills was my tendency to look at the slides regularly, which messes up the flow of the presentation and makes it seem as if I don’t know the material I am presenting by heart.

Those who viewed my practice presentation found it to be a little boring, as I had many long slides inundated with text all throughout my powerpoint. After my first practice, I cut down a majority of my long slides, either by removing text and adding it to my script or by splitting slides with more than 4 points into multiple slides with less text. With all of these additions being made to my script, I also went through the script from the beginning and simplified it, ensuring that any complicated language was put as simply as possible (this both makes it easier to memorize and easier for the audience to understand). With regards to visual aids, I found that the one picture (of a PCA pump) and two tables (my results) were not enough to sufficiently keep the audience's attention through a 22 slide presentation. I added 3 pictures and a graph to my updated slideshow (28 slides in total), which should be more than enough to both help get my points across to the audience and keep them engaged with my presentation.

With regards to my methodology and discussion sections, I added a few slides to both explain how I formulated my survey questions and create a direct link between my results and my conclusion. I had an especially hard time creating a discussion section, as everything I would say in my discussion was more concisely stated in my conclusion just a slide later. I ended up merely using the discussion section to tell the audience about some interesting things shown by my data that I did not explicitly mention before (and that didn’t directly relate to the conclusion).

Saturday will be the next practice presentation opportunity for me, while the final presentation will also take place towards the end of next week. My last blog post for this project will be a reflection on my final presentation.

Almost done!

WORD COUNT: 515

Presentation Preparation

Hello!

Last week I finally finished my research paper in its entirety, and submitted it for consideration by the College Board. After frantically spending the few nights before my submission reading over my paper and removing any identifying characteristics (my name, school, contact information), I sent my paper to a few friends and family members who had no prior knowledge of my research project to ensure that my literature review properly explained the background of my topic and conclusion followed logically from the introduction and results. After a few edits to the formatting and in-text citations, I felt comfortable submitting it as my final paper and using it to begin writing my presentation.

Looking at the rubric of the College Board presentation, I have found it to include several specific requirements that one would not normally think to include in a presentation, mainly in terms of the “reflection” section of the rubric. This section requires me to explicitly include in my presentation the process by which I thought through my research methods, results, and then conclusion, similar to how I have shown my research development through blog posts.

With regards to my actual powerpoint slides, I have been focused on limiting each of my slides to only a few bullet points, and writing out a detailed script to fill in the missing parts. Last year we were taught to limit the information in our powerpoint slides to ensure that we were essential as speakers (if everything you say is in the slides then there is no point in you presenting). Using short bullet points both keeps the audience engaged and gives me a small indication of what I am going to say next. An interesting template is also instrumental in keeping the audience’s attention, and I decided to import one into Google Slides that fit my topic, eventually deciding on a medicine-themed template.

The rubric indicates that a strong presentation should make use of visual aids. The best place to include this would be when showing the data obtained in the study as a graph. Unfortunately, my data is not well suited to a graph, and I am currently considering using a chart instead (this is what I used in my research paper, see below).

Results

Table 1: Criteria Evaluation levels

Criteria being considered	Places with protocol	Places without a protocol
Obesity	None	25%
Substance abuse	None	0%
Sleep apnea	None	0%
Cognitive Impairment	None	63%
Asthma	None	13%
Conflicting medications	None	50%
Other common criteria (reported from short answer questions)	None	Pre-hospital pain level (13%), Complexity of the surgery (13%) Urgency of the pain and how rapidly the medication need to take effect (50%) Patient’s physical ability to control the PCA pump (50%)

Table 2: Burden on and value to the Healthcare system

Question	Places with protocol	Places without a protocol
Does your hospital have a PCA pump prescription protocol	None (0%)	None (0%)
Do you feel that a procedure/protocol that all staff must go through prior to prescribing a PCA pump would be beneficial for patients?	None	100%
Would the protocol be a burden?	None	75%

Since this is the week of practice presentations, I will use the feedback I get from my practice run to modify my slides/visual aids for the final presentation (next week!). Hopefully this final step in my research project will be a success, and in my next blog post, I will discuss the completion of my presentation slides, my feelings about my practice presentation, and my preparation for my final presentation.
WORD COUNT: 592