Going virtual
The rapid transition to digital medical education offers both advantages and challenges
Feature
By Allison Evans, assistant managing editor, June 1, 2021
With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the transition to virtual education happened practically overnight — offering attendees the opportunity to get their CME credits from the safety of their homes. However, the shift did not occur without a few bumps and hurdles.
While technology has served as a replacement for the in-person meeting experience, tech problems are often unavoidable. Wi-Fi connectivity issues, exasperating audio echoes and feedback, and platform glitches can throw a wrench in even the most simple meeting experience with the most advanced technology.
Is this new learning model here to stay?
This month, dermatologists and meetings experts discuss how the abrupt and forced transition to a digital educational environment has impacted the specialty, as well as methods for making this newly normalized mode of communication functional and effective.
The good, bad, and in between
Adam Friedman, MD, has given digital talks and presentations, and taught courses for years — well before the world hung its collective “closed” sign during COVID-19. “People think they attend live meetings because they want to get their CME, but it turns out they really want to hear and engage with the experts firsthand, in real time,” said Dr. Friedman, professor and chair of dermatology at George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences. “CME isn’t even the biggest draw nowadays because it’s so accessible, even before this virtual new world.”
During a time when in-person options to connect and learn are few and far between, the virtual world has provided an opportunity for more people to engage, albeit in a different way. Many practices are still hurting or trying to recover from the impact of the pandemic. Shutting down the office or taking on a lighter schedule to travel to a meeting may be not feasible, Dr. Friedman noted. Virtual education improves access by circumventing some of the limitations with respect to location, travel, and cost, he said, with the added bonus of reducing the environmental impact.
“We have been inundated with virtual activities much more than ever before, and I think that the way we used to deliver education has to change.”
Going virtual has forced many organizations to reassess the entire concept of how to deliver education and what engagement should look like, said meetings expert Lee Gimpel, founder of Better Meetings, a meeting facilitation, training, and design firm working on in-person, online, and hybrid meetings and conferences. With online meetings, there are different opportunities for meeting organizers to create unique features and customized content in a way that’s not possible when meeting in person.
“There’s no question in my mind,” Dr. Friedman said, “that you don’t get the same engagement, investment, and sparks of creativity when you’re not in the same room.” While virtual conferences offer attendees a new take on such events, it’s hard to replicate the social connection that happens at an in-person meeting. “One of the biggest strengths of going to a meeting, aside from lecturing, is networking,” Dr. Friedman said. “It isn’t just a social thing; it’s a career thing.”
“It’s great to have a talent show, a scavenger hunt, or a comedian,” Gimpel said, “But don’t write off sessions where attendees — as well as exhibitors and sponsors — actually meet and talk. It’s really important to not lose those magic moments in the hallways, when people sit down next to each other, when an attendee catches a speaker one-on-one, or when a group of people hang out in the evening and get a beer or dinner. Virtual conferences can still deliver these types of moments, but event organizers have to be intentional about them.”
Back in the day…
Dermatologists reflect on how the practice of dermatology has changed over the past 40 years. Read more.
Zoom fatigue
The now ubiquitous video conferencing platform Zoom has become as familiar a term as Kleenex and Google. In addition to becoming a verb, the noun “Zoom fatigue” has also gained notoriety throughout the pandemic as people have been forced to stare not only at themselves for extended periods of time, but to also be up close and personal with family, friends, and colleagues in a way that can be exhausting.
There are some unique psychological attributes to videoconferencing that can make it tiresome, said Gimpel. However, he notes that, “It’s also easy to forget how tired we feel at the end of a day at an in-person conference. A lot of what makes people tired online is the same as what makes people tired in person.” Asking your audience to do a lot of passive sitting and listening is a prime culprit of fatigue.
Allowing virtual meeting attendees to engage with one another and the material rather than watching someone narrate a slide deck is certainly more invigorating, Gimpel said. Another simple fix for Zoom fatigue is to give people breaks. “Whether online or in person, a conference schedule doesn’t have to be programmed so that every available minute is used,” he explained.
Are more technology options better?
There is a cornucopia of tools and technology to choose from, and it grows larger by the day as companies offer more products and services for the online and hybrid conference market, said meetings expert Lee Gimpel. “A central question here is to what degree an organization wants one conference platform to do everything, even if it doesn’t do all of those things exceptionally well, versus combining specialty and best-of-breed products for an event. Of course, the more components one adds, the more complicated it becomes to set up the event, manage it, troubleshoot issues, and provide tech support.”
In general, the big online conference platforms are focused on delivering content, specifically the very typical use of an expert or a panel on stage addressing a mostly passive, unseen audience. These larger platforms may also integrate well with an association’s membership database to ease registration. However, they tend to fall short when it comes to building connections and fostering networking opportunities; these opportunities seem to be better handled by more niche technologies, Gimpel explained.
In the past year, the technology has changed rapidly, said Jennifer Thompson, MS, FACEHP, the Academy’s associate director of education. “We’re all trying so hard, and although we can’t replicate the in-person experience, there are technologies that make people feel more engaged.”
Third-party tools and technologies tend to live in a few different buckets. First, there are outside tools, like polls and voting, that are often better than the stock options in a platform, Gimpel said. “There’s a whole genre of collaboration boards that allow an audience to pool ideas, group them together, and vote on them. Importantly, there is an entire universe of networking apps with a variety of different approaches, from avatars that you can move around a space as if walking within a room, to those that use intelligence to try to match people for mutual benefit.”
Finally, it may be worth looking at how attendees are engaging with exhibitors and sponsors. “Many platforms have underperformed in how they facilitate the meeting of those attending the event and those occupying booths or offering their services to that audience,” he said.
Short and sweet
The all-day conference won’t survive on a virtual platform, said Dr. Friedman. According to Gimpel, it is normal that the number of consecutive full days tends to diminish as conferences move online. “While the fatigue of watching a screen for days on end is part of this change, it’s also very much a function of people not cloistering themselves away at an event, far from the demands of day-to-day work and responsibilities at home. People are working their regular jobs in addition to trying to squeeze in remote events in their spare moments.”
“No one is going to sit at their computer for more than two consecutive hours,” Dr. Friedman noted. “Two-hour blocks followed by a break seems to work fairly well.” Other meetings have tried an interspersed rollout of virtual meeting sessions in which a meeting — that may have traditionally been three consecutive days — transitions to a series of half days over the course of a few weeks or something similarly prolonged, explained Gimpel.
This slow-drip consumption of information has proven to be successful for Dr. Friedman’s virtual board review course for residents, which used to be a five-hour cram session. “Last year, we spread it out and gave one to two lectures every night for a week, and it was much more digestible. In fact, we had about 700 residents attend every night.”
Sessions and events need to be short, sweet, and interactive. That is my best advice for making virtual education successful, Dr. Friedman said.
AAD VMX: A foray into the world of virtual conferences
For the Academy’s first Virtual Meeting Experience (VMX), which took place in June 2020, the Academy quickly pivoted to a virtual meeting with only a few months of preparation, said Jennifer Thompson, MS, FACEHP, the Academy’s associate director of education. While there was a fair number of prerecorded sessions due to time constraints, it was clear Academy members enjoyed the freedom to watch sessions on-demand at their leisure. The ability to watch every session — something that was never possible before at an in-person meeting — was a bonus for many, she noted.
“As the Academy resumes in-person meetings, VMX is going to become more of a unique digital experience,” Thompson said. “It can’t just consist of slides and audio lectures that people passively take in. The content will be bite-sized; something that attendees can take on the go,” she said.
For next year’s VMX, we’re going to be incorporating more breakout rooms where attendees can have conversations with thought experts worldwide, Thompson said. “We’re also encouraging individual talks to be no more than 15-20 minutes to keep the content easily consumable.”
The concept behind what makes an AAD session a forum or a symposium will also change. “A symposium is traditionally a three-hour long session, but no one wants to sit in front of a computer that long. Sessions will be much shorter with plenty of on-demand content as well,” Thompson added.
Learning on the go
Breakout rooms and panel discussions
In attempt to make virtual connections more effective, many organizations have latched on to virtual breakout rooms, which have been touted as a panacea for engagement and collaboration. Having more than four people in a virtual “room” makes it difficult to have a real conversation, Dr. Friedman said. Dr. Friedman has also taken part in smaller panels that had a few speakers with roughly 20 attendees — and only one person asking questions. “I don’t think we have it nailed down as a perfect science,” he said.
Additionally, panel discussions can lead to a more dynamic online experience. As someone who has experienced the positives and negatives of virtual engagement, his best experience was when a panel of five faculty members were informally having a discussion on a topic. They asked each other questions, which inspired some of the attendees to jump in and ask questions as well.
It’s much easier to adapt the format of a session to make it easier for a speaker to shine, and do so with less work, than it is to turn someone into a great presenter, Gimpel said. “For example, being dynamic while speaking to your webcam solo, delivering prepared remarks, for an hour is extremely difficult. On the other hand, it’s typically quite easy for an expert to answer questions from an interviewer — a format the audience tends to enjoy more than someone reading an hour of slides.”
2021 AADA Virtual Legislative Conference
Don't forget to register for the Academy’s Virtual Legislative Conference, that will take place Sept. 23-28. Learn more.
Engagement
According to Gimpel, conferences often classify sessions as either being informational, learning, or content sessions, as opposed to sessions dedicated to networking or connectivity. “We think of a keynote address as a content session and an evening happy hour as a networking session. But there’s no reason there needs to be a firewall between the two. You can have networking and human connection in content sessions, and an event’s networking sessions can be built around what people are learning or what they care about.”
While prerecorded meeting sessions have become a default option for many organizations due to the rapidity of the transition, it’s not always an ideal one. “No one brings their A-game when they know they can be edited or start over,” Dr. Friedman said. “Being nervous is a good thing. The energy, the delivery, and maybe even the quality, suffers a bit when you don’t have the same pressure of an audience sitting in front of you.”
M. Laurin Council, MD, associate professor of dermatology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, feels more relaxed when delivering a presentation from the comfort of her own living room. “That being said, there is added stress when audio or video is not consistent or when you lose connection.”
Gimpel advocates for content sessions that involve the audience and allow them to participate and interact with each other and the speakers beyond the chat box or the three minutes for questions at the end of a session. Dr. Council uses audience response systems (ARS) and polling as a way to keep attendees engaged. “If audience participation is required, it is important to have cameras on so that everyone stays engaged. ARS and Q&As keep the dialogue going and help facilitate discussion. Without those two features, it is easy for someone to be distracted by whatever is going on in their environment.”
Dr. Friedman also incorporates ARS questions in his lectures. “If you’re being asked questions, you’ll want to see how everyone else responds. We are very type A. In dermatology, we like to be competitive, so I think that level of engagement is very helpful.”
Case-based learning is another great driver for engagement. Dr. Friedman and one of his colleagues presented a session called ‘What the hell is that?’ where they each brought cases that neither of them had seen before and then they would quiz one another.
“The audience gets to watch how we think through these cases,” he explained, but in a virtual platform. “Attendees were able to vote on what they thought the answer was too. Because you’re losing the in-person, tactile nature of live meetings, you need to find other ways to engage the audience, and ARS is a great way to do that. Even if you don’t have access to the technology, you should create lectures that pose questions and make the audience really think about the content versus passive learning.”
5 expert tips for giving virtual presentations
Get comfortable in front of the screen
“It’s incredibly easy to record yourself. Use your phone or other technology and talk about anything for a minute or two. Look for where your eyes go; look at your body movement; look at your posture,” noted Adam Friedman, MD. Avoid being overly stiff and robotic by trying to exaggerate gestures and be sure to look directly at the camera, not the screen or the other attendees.
Seek out available coaching and training options
The Academy’s media training session, traditionally offered at the annual and summer meetings, not only provides coaching on how to speak, but shows participants how they appear on a large screen. Some organizations may even offer specific courses or best practices for delivering virtual presentations. If there is no organized training, search out guidance on social media channels like YouTube, which now have an endless supply of content on the topic.
Find optimal lighting and background
Look for good front light, which means a light that shines brightly on your face. Avoid backlighting yourself by closing shades if you are in front of a window. Natural light is often the best choice; however, those who present often may want to purchase a supplemental light. Avoid a cluttered background or anything that might be distracting. Determine whether the platform allows you to use virtual backgrounds and whether that would add to or detract from the presentation.
Explore new ways to encourage engagement
Save your slideshow skills and avoid lecturing at the audience. Put yourself in the position of the attendee and create an audience-focused event. Use case studies, stories, and anecdotes, but keep everything brief.
Do a dry run
Get on the platform and do a complete practice run. Use the computer you will be using, the internet you will be using, wear the outfit you plan on wearing, and the room you will be using. Move between slides identifying potential technical flubs. Become overly familiar with all the technical elements.
Training
Training delivered in a virtual setting may ultimately encourage better attendance and engagement. The reality is that no matter how exceptional a presenter someone might be in person, the tricks of the trade are not necessarily 100% adaptable to online platforms. “Some companies are considering mandatory Zoom lecturing training courses for speakers,” Dr. Friedman said, who argues that these courses could help novice digital speakers build confidence.
“It’s very difficult to ask someone who isn’t a professional speaker to bear the burden of being an engaging presenter for an hour,” Gimpel said. “But conference organizers can put up guardrails that help presenters be more engaging, while also delivering sessions that audiences appreciate more.”
Gazing into the future
While virtual meetings present a strange amalgamation between an inclusive and environmentally friendly way of using technology for greater access, and an exhausting, intense, and often unnatural system of social encounters, there may be no going back. “We have been inundated with virtual activities much more than ever before, and I think that the way we used to deliver education has to change,” Dr. Friedman said.
Dr. Friedman and others agree that hybrid is the future. “People will also come to in-person meetings,” he said. “However, overall attendance should be greater as more people can tune in remotely. I imagine most events will be a combination of in-person, live-streamed, and recorded archives.”
“We are going to go back to having in-person meetings,” said Jennifer Thompson, MS, FACEHP, the Academy’s associate director of education. “There’s going to be a place for each of these educational venues: Some opportunities are going to stay in person and some are going to stay online.”
“As we increase virtual educational content, we will continue to learn what works and what doesn’t work,” Dr. Council said. “We can learn from what others have done to improve our own presentations going forward.”
AAD VMX on-demand
The live portion of AAD VMX 2021 may be over, but sessions can still be accessed on-demand until July 12. Check them out before they're gone!
