1. POSTER TEMPLATES BY: www.POSTERPRESENTATIONS.com Introductions Results Discussion (continued) References Objective(s) Procedures/Variables/Definitions Discussion Specify the objective(s) of your study Example: To determine if an educational initiative improves resident exam scores on a validated obstetrics test. Establish any previous work related to your study objectives. This section should describe the gaping hole in the literature and how your specific aims will attempt to address the gaping hole. Example: As of 2010 only 10% of family physicians provided maternity care compared to 46% in 1978. This decline is attributed to multiple factors. One factor is inadequate obstetric training provided in Family Medicine Residency training years. Improving obstetric teaching and training during residency may play a role in increasing comfort level among family medicine residents and encourage them to provide maternity care after graduation. Don’t Be Constrained by These Headings Every study is different, so don’t feel like you have to mash your round pegs to fit into the template’s square holes. Add sections and headings as are dictated by your study. Here’s where you provide some detail to all of the cool tables and figures that you have provided. Make sure the reader is very aware of what you consider to be the major findings from your study. This is also a place to remark upon some of the minor findings that did not make their way into any of your tables and figures. Hint: Don’t just regurgitate the same information already present in your tables and figures. Pick out specific pieces of information on which you would like your reader to focus. The discussion section is used to summarize the main findings from your study and to interpret your results relative to current findings in the literature. While it is a nice thing to include references, if you’re crunched for space, these are the first things to go. If the choice is between including a really good looking graph or the references, ditch the references and show the graph. At times you will need to continue a section from the bottom of one column to the top of the next. When you do this, be sure to rename the heading, with the word “continued” in parentheses, so that the reader can more easily follow the flow of the poster. Conclusions The big finish, where you get to blow your audience away with your final, pithy comments. This should be brief, three sentences tops. If you’re at a loss for words, you can either do a combined Discussion/Conclusions section or just do a conclusions section that reiterates the importance of your study. Title Authors Associated institutions Methods Analyses Use this section to provide a brief description of the statistical tests used, your sample size justification (if pertinent to your study) and your criterion for significance (e.g., p < 0.05). Charts/Graphs/Pictures Lights! Camera! Graphs! Photos! Lurid Data! Yow! You get the idea. Here is where you put your eyeball grabbing data, amazing graphs and stupendous radiology and photos. Just don’t get all carried away with the three-D stuff and the retina searing color combinations. Provide your information in a clear, informative, and yes, entertaining fashion. Remember to number all Tables and Figures, so that you can easily refer to them in the Results section. This section basically describes your experimental treatments/interventions (if any). Example: Initiative/intervention description: So, if you had a treatment to describe how you increased resident knowledge using hypnosis before each rotation, that would go in here. Procedures: Pre-initiative data collection: a pre-test was administered to residents one week prior to starting the educational training. Implementation of educational initiative: the new educational training was implemented on 7/1/14. Post-initiative data collection: a post-test was administered to residents one week after completing the educational training. Primary outcome variable: Test scores pre-post educational initiative. Study Population: Describe your target population, the timeframe for the study, and which specific inclusion and exclusion criteria were used. If this was a prospective study, you will need to state whether informed consent was obtained. Sampling Techniques: Describe your methods for obtaining your sample. Examples: convenience sample, random sampling, stratified random, sampling, purposeful sampling