Department of Medical Education
MedEd Symposium
Register to Attend or Present at the 2025 MedEd Symposium
Are you a clinician or basic science educator, trainee, or student in the Health Professions at USF Health or our hospital affiliates and want to showcase your programmatic successes, research, and innovations?
Do you have an idea you have in development that could use resources and support?
Have you engaged in a creative production that you would like to showcase?
We invite you to present your education-related scholarly work at the 2nd Annual USF Health MedEd Symposium!
Abstract proposals are invited in four distinct categories:
- Innovations in Medical Education (poster)
- Research in Medical Education (poster)
- Creative Expression (varies)
- Ace pitch! (oral)
Please note: This symposium will occur in conjunction with USF Health Research Day at the USF Marshall Center. There will be time to visit USF Health Research Day during our symposium. If you are presenting at USF Health Research Day do not apply to present at the MedEd Symposium.
Registration and Submission Deadline
The symposium is on Friday February 28, 2025 from 9am-4pm at the USF Marshall Center, 3rd floor.
- Those wishing to present: must register and submit abstracts by 11:59pm EST on January 10, 2025.
- If you plan on attending, but not presenting, please register by 11:59pm EST on February 14, 2025.
Submissions will be peer reviewed on Jan 17, and those whose abstracts/posters were selected will be notified Jan 31.
Submission Categories
Innovations in Medical Education (IME) Abstracts
Purpose: To promote dissemination and discussion of educational innovations.
Criteria: 2000 character (max) abstract, outlining:
- Objective or purpose of innovation
- Background or theoretical framework and importance to the field
- Instructional methods and materials used
- Educational outcomes to date
- Innovation’s strengths and areas for improvement
- Feasibility of maintaining program and transfer to other schools/programs
- References (Not included in word count)
Research in Medical Education (RIME) Abstracts
Purpose: To promote dissemination and discussion of research and its application to medical education.
Criteria: 2000 character (max) research abstract outlining:
- Introduction including background, purpose and significance of the study
- Methods
- Results to date
- Conclusions
- References (Not included in word count)
Creative Expression
Purpose: To disseminate creative ideas in medical education, including medical arts and humanities, narrative, visual, and other expressions to support medical education
- NEW - Participants accepted to present in this category will have a platform to showcase their creative works in innovative ways
Criteria: 2000 character (max) abstract outlining:
- Introduction including description of the origin of the idea, and objective of the creative purpose
- Description of the creative work, may include a link to website or document with scaled product
Any other pertinent information to present the creative product
Ace Pitch! Abstracts
Purpose: To cultivate new ideas rooted in good educational practice, and support scholarly development
- A "Shark Tank"-like presentation, participants accepted to present in this category compete with each other to qualify for up to $1500 in seed funding.
Criteria: 2000 character (max) abstract outlining:
- Introduction including description of the origin of the idea, and objective or purpose for innovation
- Background or theoretical framework and importance to the field (i.e. statement of the problem)
- Proposed Instructional methods and materials used
- Intended educational outcomes
- Description of budget and justification
- References (Not included in word count)
Guidelines for Writing IME/RIME Abstracts
An abstract:
- Is a condensed version of a full research/innovation description paper.
- Provides reviewers a brief synopsis of innovation/research purpose, design, findings to date and implications.
- Focuses on primary issues of why the work was done, how it was/is carried out, what was found, and what the potential implications are.
- Is written clearly with strict adherence to published specifications and format requirements.
- Is proofread carefully.
Let's take a closer look at each Abstract section and how the following questions should be answered.
- Provide a context or explanation for doing the study/innovation.
- State the aim of the study/innovation.
- Show relevance of the work to the field.
- Introduce the design/approach of the study/innovation.
- State the context in which it was done and who participated.
- Describe how the study/innovation was executed (including data sources and analysis).
- Include key data/outcomes that flow from previous sections and from which you will draw your conclusions.
- Do not include interpretations.
- Report descriptive data (response rate, final pool of participants), inferential values with p values, functional significance (effect size), and/or emergent themes and sub‐themes, if applicable.
- A table or figure may be included if permitted and it conveys the findings of the study/innovations more effectively than text alone.
- Interpret results.
- State the implications/importance of the results.
- Relate to the purpose of the study/innovation.
- Convey as much as possible about context and aims of your study.
- Alert readers to the overall “take‐home message.”
- Describe what was investigated/done rather than to state results or conclusions.
- Don’t use jargon, or unfamiliar acronyms
- Include key aspects of study/innovation design
- Use simple declarative sentences; active voice is preferable to passive voice.
- Spell out all but the most commonplace abbreviations or acronyms the first time they appear.
- Re‐read the instructions before printing the final onto the submission form, and to make sure they have been followed to the letter.
- Avoid grammatical mistakes, misspelled words, or typographical errors.
- Read colleagues’ accepted abstracts and/or published abstracts from recent meetings (if they are available).
- The list of authors should be restricted to those individuals who actually did the study— conceived it, designed it, gathered the data, crunched the numbers, and wrote the abstract.
- Author lists are rough rank orders of the relative contributions of the persons named, with the exception that the senior author (the mentor) is often listed last.
- The author listed first is the person who conceived the study and did most of the creative work on the project. With few exceptions, this should be the person who will present the abstract, if it is accepted.