2025 Symposium
VoiceThread Recording Submission Deadline: Friday, Jan. 31, 2025
Symposium Day: Thursday, March 6, 2025
Poster Design
Upon abstract acceptance, all posters must be uploaded and recorded on VoiceThread by Jan 31, 2025 All posters that are narrated on VoiceThread by the deadline will be officially listed in the Symposium Compendium and can be included in your CV. Posters that are not uploaded on VoiceThread cannot be listed on your CV.
The symposium will be held in one round. All virtual submissions will be required to upload a narrative recording and poster on VoiceThread. Posters that have been accepted for in person presentations are only required to upload their poster on VoiceThread. The top 40 posters will be invited to present their work in-person in Rayzor Lounge and compete for the Henry J.N. Taub Young Investigator Award, as well for the Most Popular Poster Award.
During the in-person presentations on Symposium Day, the top scoring posters of the in-person presentations on Symposium Day will be awarded the Henry J.N. Taub Young Investigator Awards. Of note, the first author of the poster must be present during the symposium to present.
In addition, all symposium participants will have the opportunity to select their favorite poster via live voting on Symposium Day and the winner (the poster with the highest number of votes) will be awarded the “Most Popular Poster Award."
General Poster Design Guidelines
- Divide your poster presentation clearly into introduction, objective/hypothesis, methods, results, conclusion/discussion, and acknowledgement sections
- Do not include your abstract on the poster
- Make sure your objective/hypothesis is clearly stated
- Make sure you clearly define on poster and verbally in your presentation, what role you had in the research and how much you contributed to the presented data.
VoiceThread Poster Design
- Prepare your cover slide (1 page) using appropriate software (e.g., Power Point): State the name and add a professional photo of the first author (if equal authorship: photos of all equally contributing authors), yet not of any co-authors or mentors. State your class year next to your name. State the title of your poster, yet no affiliations or names of co-authors. Make sure you clearly define on poster and verbally in your presentation, what role you had in the research and how much you contributed to the presented data.
- Once the cover slide is ready for publication, upload the slide to VoiceThread as page 1 of your presentation
- Once your poster slide (1 page) is ready for publication, upload the slide to VoiceThread as page 2 of your presentation
- Optional: upload your abstract as page 3 of your presentation
- In VoiceThread, the first author will record a 5-10 minute summary of the project. If equal authorship, all “equally contributing authors” (but not other co-authors) must contribute verbally.
- Detailed instructions of how to upload pages and record in VoiceThread, as well as how to submit your VoiceThread link to the symposium website will be provided by email once your poster has been accepted for presentation.
Poster Presentation
To qualify for the Henry J.N. Taub Young Investigator Award, all equally contributing authors must verbally present their work on Symposium Day. Medical students who fail to present their poster on Symposium Day without prior notification will not be considered for poster presentation at future symposiums.
Students will be notified by Friday, Dec. 13, 2024, if their poster has been selected for an in-person presentation. Students must have their posters uploaded to VoiceThread and emailed to Arlincia Howell by Jan. 31, 2025 for printing. Detailed instructions will be sent to in person presenters via email.
On Symposium Day (March 7, 2024)
- Posters need to be hung up by 8:30 a.m. and stay until 2 p.m. If you would like to hang your poster early, the presentation boards will be available in Rayzor Lounge the night before the symposium.
- Each presentation board will be labeled with a number and a category that matches your abstract number (abstract number will be given upon abstract acceptance); please use the board with your designated number.
- Dress professionally (suit and tie are not required, but no scrubs or shorts)
- Presentations will take place from 9 – 11:30 a.m.
Judging Criteria (Virtual Poster Presentations)
Virtual posters will be reviewed by judges to provide constructive feedback, as this may be the students’ first opportunity to present an abstract. Additionally, presenting virtual posters via VoiceThread can be included on a professional CV. There is no monetary award for virtual posters.
Judging Criteria (In-person Poster Presentations)
Judges will be scoring your poster presentation and will look for the following criteria:
- Medical student’s appearance: Well-prepared, engaged, confident, professional, on time
- Quality of oral presentation: Clear and concise project overview and able to answer questions adequately
- Quality of poster: Appropriate, understandable, and informative overview of your project
- Quality of research (objective/hypothesis-driven study)
- clear objective/hypothesis
- appropriate methods to address the objective/hypothesis
- conclusion(s) are supported by presented data and directly relate to the objective/hypothesis
- Impact of research project: novelty (new concepts, new knowledge, new technology), validity of data
- Medical student's involvement in the research (please clearly define what role you had in the research project)
- Each poster will be rated on a scale of 1-5 (1=worst, 5=best)
Henry J.N. Taub Young Investigator Awards
On Symposium Day, judges will score each in-person poster presentation and points from all judges will be added together. In each category (clinical, basic science, health system science, and educational research), the highest scoring posters will be awarded. The number of awards given for each category will be based on the number of abstract submissions per category.
Award winners will be announced during the award ceremony, right after the Keynote Speaker.
Most Popular Poster Award
This award will be given to the poster receiving the most votes by the audience/visitors on the Symposium Day. Voting will be electronic (QR code provided in Rayzor Lounge) and is non-criteria based. Each individual may only vote once.
