By Tara Haelle
Conferences can be hectic to cover, and it’s difficult sometimes to pin down the researcher or presenter you need, much less get quotes from other attendees about a particular presentation. Having a list of ready questions for these two common conference interview scenarios can help when you’re feeling flustered or your brain starts to reach conference carrying capacity.
Whether you use these exact questions, tweak them or develop your own, keep in mind that most of the time, what you primarily need is the clinical significance of the findings or, if there is no immediate clinical significance, what makes the findings important or surprising. If it is CME-type presentation instead of a research abstract, you typically want to know the most important take-home clinical point that the presenter wants attendees to walk away with, or the key point an attendee you are interviewing got from the presentation.
This PDF is a handy pocket-sized printout of the following questions that you can take to the conference:
For conference presenters:
- Could you please state and spell your name and your institutional affiliation and city?
- Do you have any disclosures? (This can be asked at the end of an interview, which is what I used to do, but because an interview might get cut off or be rushed, or I may simply forget, I’ve begun asking at the start.)
- Did anything particularly surprise you about your findings?
- Why is this research or your findings important?
- What is the take-home message from your study for clinicians? What does this mean for their everyday clinical practice?
- Anything you want to add or particularly point out to others?
For conference attendees:
(There is rarely time to ask all of these questions, but choosing a few of these will generally get what you need.)
- Could you please state and spell your name and your institutional affiliation and city?
- Do you have any disclosures?
- What did you think of the presentation and/or research in general?
- What was most valuable to you about this presentation?
- Was there anything presented here that surprised you? Why/why not?
- What do you think is the most important take-home message from this research or presentation for clinicians in their everyday practice?
- Is there anything here you had questions or concerns or skepticism about?
- How will the information in this presentation be useful or relevant to you in your practice or work?
- Anything else you want to add?
