Dr. Park Jaewoo, Park Jaewoo Plastic Surgery

 

 

“Forget the slides”

 

The first presentation Dr. Park gave was a failure.

“I had been just appointed as a member of the teaching staff at a university hospital. I thought I had prepared a lot and gave a good lecture but the response of the audience was not good. They seemed to be dozing off or looking off to a distance. I was angry when my lecture was over. I did not understand why the students were bored at my lecture. Soon after my first lecture, I attended a training session for new professors at Seoul National University. There, one of the professors gave a very impressive lecture. He emphasized that lectures should aim for mutual communication and not for one-directional delivery of information. Also, he said that a lecture should not focus on delivery of a lot of information but should deliver key information in cohesive and organized manner. I realized what was wrong with my first lecture. I only focused on delivery of information.”

 

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Dr. Park says all lectures, whether they are 5 minutes or 1 hour long, should follow four steps of storytelling (introduction, development, turn and conclusion). Most boring lectures stay at the introduction phase and do not move on to the next phases.

“The poorest talks have very long introduction. When the intro takes up the majority of the talk, the key points cannot be delivered. You should organize your talk in cohesive stages within the given time limit.”

Recently, he gave a two-hour lecture. The audience’s attention deteriorates greatly with longer lectures.

“I had to give a general introduction of plastic surgery to the members of Korean Pharmaceutical Association. Not only was this a long lecture but it spanned from 9-11 in the late evening. I prepared a total of 500 slides, counting 4 slides per minute. It was bound to be a difficult lecture for both the audience and speaker. I tried to bring back the focus of audience every 30 minutes. I often veered away from the topic to give the audience a break. According to a well known technique, the audience only remembers the first 10-15 minutes of a one-hour talk. In other words, about 15 minutes into the talk, the attention is lost. It is important to intersperse the lecture with breaks to keep the audience interested.”

 

 

Another important aspect to consider is the makeup of the audience.

“When I am asked to give a lecture, I first find out whether the audience are students, elderly or housewives and the number of the attendees. The lecture varies depending on the composition and number of the audience. For example, the speaker should use a conversational tone for a small audience of 10 people. If there are over 500 people in the audience, the tone would have to be more formal. With a big audience, my personal knowhow is that I try to make eye contact with one or two members. This helps me relax more in front of a large group of people.”

Dr. Park explains that the most important presentation skill is ‘letting go.’

“Let’s say that I am asked to do a 15-minute lecture. I go over my 500 slides and take those out that can be replaced by oral explanation or are of less importance. This leaves me with 100-200 slides. Then, I subtract slides that other people already know and I end up with about 50-60 slides. And when I am on the podium, I skip some of these slides depending on the preceding lectures and the response of the audience. If you prepare too much, you will not have time to cover the real important points. The most important skill as a presenter is to skim the unnecessary stuff from your talk.”