5th Annual Duke Heart Center/DCRI Fellows' Career Accelerator Course

2020 agenda coming soon!

Course Directors:
Andrew Wang, MD
Sunil Rao, MD
Tracy Wang, MD

Program Description:
This innovative 1.5-day course will be offered to selected 2nd, 3rd, or advanced year cardiology fellows from fellowship programs across the United States, and will provide essential training, advice and direct, individual feedback in oral and written presentation skills. In addition, the application of these skills toward career development will be emphasized. These skills are powerful tools for fellows in their careers, whether their careers move into academic, practice, administrative or industry positions. The ability to deliver effective communication in speaking and writing differentiates leaders in the field of cardiology.   

Learning Objectives:

• To improve the effectiveness of cardiology fellows in oral and written presentations.

• To increase the confidence of cardiology fellows in these skills toward pursuit of academic work in their careers.

• To inform fellows of opportunities for using communication skills for career advancement and broader impact.

Important Dates:
December 6, 2019 – application deadline
December 16, 2019 – admission decisions sent via email
December 30, 2019 – deadline to confirm enrollment

For more information, contact Dr. Andrew Wang at a.wang@dm.duke.edu.

Travel Information:
The course will take place at the Hilton Garden Inn Durham/University Medical Center (map). Registration and meals provided during program hours will be covered by Duke, including dinner on Saturday night. All travel costs, including flights, hotel, ground transportation, parking, etc., should be covered by the participant or by their fellowship program. RDU International Airport is the closest airport to Durham, NC.

Testimonials from Past Participants

• This course was universally fantastic. In contrast to many conferences where you are not sure what you truly came away with, this course taught so many tangible skills. The presentations were all fantastic. The presentation exercise was phenomenal. Just from this weekend, I have already changed many of my manuscripts/abstracts and am much more cognizant of my presentation tics. Furthermore, I was so impressed by the faculty and their dedication to the course. All of the faculty knew my name by the end of the weekend (which doesn't even happen at my own institution) and I look forward to getting to interact with them again at national conferences.

• It was so helpful to have personalized, directed advice on how to improve my skills.

• The interactive and practical parts of the course are excellent. The small size of the course allowing one on one time with faculty was also beneficial. I think the course will benefit my presentation and abstract writing skills.

• This course was fantastic! While some of the concepts were review, it was helpful to formalize presentation "rules." Receiving honest feedback on my oral presentation was tremendously helpful. I also really appreciated the faculty's commitment to getting to know us as individuals and to providing mentorship. I will highly recommend this course to others.

• This course was one of the best training sessions I've had in fellowship - all the presentations were on point - incredibly useful, detailed, professional, and specific on tips/advice for presentations, research and career planning, and abstracts; very important and useful for us to give oral presentations and do the abstract writing session; dinner was excellent - fellow to faculty ratio was great; not too big, not too small; great role modeling by faculty.

• The feedback on participant's own oral presentations is invaluable and is something completely unique to this course. At the very least, it is just another opportunity to practice public speaking, but most of the feedback from faculty and other participants is very constructive. Also, great that the environment is "non-threatening" and does not demean the participants.

• This course has given me great insight and useful skills to become a better speaker and writer. I am more aware of common mistakes made in medical writing and also the viewpoint from different journal editors.

• The pointed feedback provided by the faculty provides the foundation I needed to identify where my communication skills lacked, which will help me focus on improving these specific areas.

• Really fantastic workshop during which I learned invaluable skills for presentations and scientific writing. The faculty provided direct, timely, and constructive feedback on my presentation, something that is rare and difficult to obtain. Practicing abstract writing and hearing style and formatting tips from the experts were extremely helpful. Perhaps most importantly, this workshop provided the opportunity to network and meet some amazing faculty and fellows from across the country.

• Very easy to follow guidelines to help improve both oral and written presentation skills. Excellent staff and facility who were able to tailor and address topics to improve and help with future career planning.

• This course provided invaluable feedback for oral presentation skills, and great tips for writing concise abstracts. I learned so much about oral presentations and abstract/manuscript drafting from only two days, and also received great career advice. The practical career advice I received will definitely helped to jump start ideas for my early career.