Ministry of Health

NZ Government

    
 ©Copyright
 Published: 29/11/2011

Grand Rounds are the major presentation platform for registrars.  Registrars are expected to find a topic, research it in detail, and present the topic.  Supervision and guidance from a senior source is critical.

Recent Grand Rounds are available via the Grand Round Archive (available through the intranet site only).  However, please do not plagiarise the available presentations, as the authors of the presentations have gone to considerable effort to prepare their grand rounds, and have kindly allowed them to be available on the site.

Structuring the Grand Round is also important, as the presentation is long and you will need to help your audience through the talk with you.  It is often useful to have a summary slide at the beginning which outlines what you are going to talk about – it helps to orientate the audience to where you are going.  You can reuse the slide as you cover each section, so the audience keeps up with you.

The structure is not fixed, but most Grand Rounds undertaken by registrars involve discussion around a specific clinical experience.  If this is the case, it is worth mentioning:

• maternal history (age, ethnicity, parity, relevant serology, relevant past history)
• this pregnancy (complications, illnesses, scan results)
• labour and delivery (reason for and method of delivery)
• infant condition at delivery (including Apgar scores, what resus was needed, and weight etc)
• progress after delivery (emphasise the important bits, don’t hesitate to summarise the information that does not really matter)
• discussion of relevant bits surrounding the case you are presenting, for example:
  • definition of the condition
  • incidence
  • aetiology/pathogenesis
  • clinical features
  • relevant investigations
  • management
  • prognosis

The above list is not meant to be exhaustive.

Remember to interpret and summarise the data for your audience.

Carl Kuschel and Malcolm Battin, August 2004