Thank you for your interest in submitting one or more didactic proposals for the SAEM Annual Meeting, a national education, research, and innovation conference for academic emergency medicine.

All didactic submissions are reviewed and scored by the Didactics Subcommittee of the SAEM Program Committee. The didactic submission review process is highly competitive due to the large volume of submissions received; however, we are committed to helping you create high-quality didactic submissions that will enrich the content of our Annual Meeting and advance the mission of the Society. This document offers some specific guidance on:

1. Selecting your speaker(s)
2. Creating the content and objectives of your didactic
3. The context of the selection process
4. Examples of successful submissions from prior SAEM Annual Meetings

We hope that you find this guide useful as you develop your didactic submission(s). If you have questions regarding the submission platform or scheduling, please contact Holly Byrd-Duncan at hbyrdduncan@saem.org or Andrea Ray at aray@saem.org. For all other questions and concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us at didactics@saem.org. Good luck!

SAEM Mission: What is the big picture?

We’re looking for what’s new and/or insightful.

• Your didactic should contribute new evidence, insights, perspectives, arguments, or ways of thinking. Don’t present something that most academicians already know well or can look up easily. The SAEM Annual Meeting is the largest gathering of academic emergency physicians in the country, enabling us to share exciting new knowledge or insights into our field. To make the most of our short time together, we are looking for didactics that are practice-changing, cutting edge, or inspiring. We are not looking for didactics that are basic summaries of existing knowledge that can be easily found elsewhere. This does not mean that we discourage talks about standard practice/procedures or “the status quo.” However, if you are going to talk about central line placement, the residency match process, or door-to-doc times, we want to hear your expert opinion or research on how you think these standards will evolve, why they might be wrong, or how they apply differently to special populations, situations, or institutions. In general, reviews of clinical knowledge will not be accepted unless they come from landmark experts in the field.
  
• You are presenting to an audience of both experts and learners. Your didactic needs to appeal widely, even if you are covering a niche topic. Much like a research manuscript, high-quality didactics should define the problem and state its importance before delving into your insights or arguments. Your talk should be inviting to learners and substantive for experts.
  
• Your didactic needs to be clearly relevant to emergency medicine. This may seem obvious, but our specialty is extremely broad and sometimes its boundaries become blurred. Please make sure that your didactic is solidly confined to emergency medicine. For instance, “time management” is a concept that can be broadly applied to almost every medical field and most endeavors in life. What insights on time management do you have to offer to academic emergency physicians that are different from insights that they can easily find elsewhere?
  
• Your didactic needs to stand out. Conference attendees will be browsing through hundreds of didactics among numerous other events sharing the same time slots. You need to be able to convince your target audience (and reviewers) that your talk will be worth their time. This means that you need to define innovative concepts as part of your proposal. If reviewers don’t understand what you mean by “backwards design,” attendees won’t either.

Speakers: Who will be presenting?

Collaborate with others and think big.

• Expertise matters. Seek speakers or panelists that are well-respected and reputable experts for your topic. While speakers with national recognition are considered favorably, we also appreciate lesser-known speakers for whom you can clearly demonstrate expertise, experience, or quality.
• Diversity matters. If you are proposing multiple speakers or panelists, please include candidates with diverse backgrounds, viewpoints, or experiences. Each speaker that you include should offer a different perspective that enriches your submission.
• Consider multi-institutional or multidisciplinary collaborations. As with abstract submissions, didactic submissions that involve collaborations between multiple institutions or disciplines are considered favorably. The bigger and more creative your scope, the better.
• Work with other SAEM members or groups. Submissions that demonstrate thoughtful collaboration across SAEM Academies, Committees, Interest Groups, or individual members are considered favorably.

Speakers example: The SAEM Residents and Medical Students (RAMS) Committee collaborates with the SAEM Education Committee to invite a panel of national EM education experts to debate the merits of traditional versus innovative bedside teaching. The proposed panel is a diverse mix of men and women from different geographic areas with varied academic backgrounds.

Content: What will you present?

Be organized and scientifically rigorous.

• Be focused. Clearly state your objectives and intended audience. What problem(s) or controversies will you tackle? What knowledge gaps will you address? What insights will your audience gain that they cannot easily acquire elsewhere?
• Be organized. Clearly outline the structure and flow of your presentation. Propose a cogent introduction, message, and closing. If you have multiple presenters or panelists, describe what each one will present. If you have a non-traditional format, describe exactly what you propose to do and how this will enrich your presentation.
• Consider timing. Demonstrate thoughtful consideration of time constraints. Panels and small groups are typically more appropriate for a 50-minute format, whereas a single speaker is typically more appropriate for a 20-minute format (with some rare exceptions).
• Offer high-quality supporting evidence. Submissions that take an evidence-based approach, have a strong scientific basis, or incorporate critical thinking and analysis are considered favorably.
• Submit a well-developed proposal. Please only submit fully developed ideas. Avoid making vague promises that content “will be developed later upon acceptance.” Submissions that do this implicitly by including descriptions that are only 1-2 sentences long are not considered favorably, even if high-quality speaker(s) or collaborations are involved.

Structure: How will you present?

Engage your audience effectively.

• Be interactive. Active audience participation and engagement are strongly encouraged. This can be in the form of audience polls, small groups, breakout sessions, or simply asking your audience questions during your presentation. Clearly describe the interactive components of your didactic(s) in your proposal(s).
• Be creative. We welcome all creative or innovative presentation styles. There is no “standard” format for SAEM didactics so long as you adhere to the time limit.
• Avoid gimmicks. While creativity is encouraged, please avoid adding an activity just for the sake of having one. All activities and interactions should be clearly linked to your objectives and advance or support your message in a meaningful way.
• Include time for questions. Please adjust your content to allow for at least 5 minutes of questions or comments from the audience during or after your didactic(s).
• Structure example: “For the first half of the presentation, we will use an interactive lecture format to present key information relevant to malpractice risk and documentation (objectives 1 and 2). We will integrate poll everywhere to deliberately engage audience members and use it as a forum for submitting questions to our presentation group. The second half of the presentation will employ small breakout groups facilitated by speakers to help participants develop goals to improve their personal and organizational documentation practices (objectives 3 and 4). Take-aways and goals from the smaller groups will be shared with the entire audience.”

Format: How should you advertise your submission?

Craft a compelling title and description.

Pick a Short and Interesting Title

The session title is the first, and perhaps only, impression you’ll make on a potential attendee. So, the better your session title, the better your odds of having what you’ve written read by a larger percentage of people and compelling them to attend your session. Here are a few ways to make your title stand out:

• Promise benefits. For instance, use the terms “how to,” “become,” or “learn.”
• Promise a story. For instance, “surviving _____ using _____ with ______.”
• Itemize. This implies structure and precision. For instance, “3 ways to _____.”
• Provoke curiosity/create FOMO. If you’re presenting new research, make the most of it. Use the terms “reveal” or “unprecedented.”

Pick Instructional Learning Objectives

Learning objectives are statements that follow the session description and describe what the participant is expected to achieve (outcomes) as a result of attending your session. Your didactic description should be:

• Stated in concrete and measurable terms, not abstract terms.
• Self-contained. That is, the objective should be achieved by the end of the didactic and not require further study or learning by the student.

Generate Excitement Through Your Description

Your description must not only give an overview of your session, it must also create interest and generate excitement about your presentation. A good session description should get the reader to say, “That sounds interesting! How do I learn more?” Here’s a few ways to create interest:

• Focus on the reader/attendee. Before you write your session description, take time to make a list of the benefits attendees will receive from participating. Then, pick the three most important points that address “what’s in it for me?”
  
• Spell out who should attend. Label the appropriate audience for each session in terms of professional level (trainee, junior faculty, senior faculty) and topic.
  

Keep it Short, Simple, and Acronym Free

Avoid jargon to be accessible to a broad audience outside your niche. Describe your didactic in 500 words, then cut back to 280 words and write a tweet. You’ll discover what is essential and what you can lose.

Format example:

Title: “Decrease Malpractice Risk - What your Charts are Lacking and How to Fix It”

Objectives: Upon completion of this session, participants should be able to: “1) Summarize the analysis of malpractice data from a NYC consortium, compared to benchmarks across a national database; 2) review outcomes of varied strategies to codify gaps in documentation that relate to malpractice claims; 3) develop an ideology of how to close gaps in your personal documentation practices; and 4) propose systems based solutions to improve documentation across your organization.”

Proposal: “The average settlement in emergency room malpractice misdiagnosis cases in 2013 was approximately $362,000. In a recent review of contributing factors resulting in the settlements, 35% of medical malpractice cases could have been avoided by improving documentation. Despite its significance as a major contributing factor in lawsuits, documentation is considered drudgery by many clinicians. Using data gleaned from unique malpractice insurance company sponsored quality improvement initiatives from a large consortium of health systems in the NYC area, we will discuss lessons learned to 1) identify key areas of ED charts where poor documentation was a contributing factor in a malpractice claim, 2) determine if scribes can improve documentation quality while improving patient satisfaction and provider efficiency, and 3) understand the impact of electronic medical record prompts to improve documentation among patients with high-risk chief complaints. Speakers have expertise in patient safety, operations, and experiential learning.”

Context: What are you up against?

Stay informed about other work.

• Look into current “hot topics,” controversies, or novel research in your topic area. This will increase the relevance of your proposal.
• Review accepted didactics in your topic area from prior years. This will help you avoid submitting a redundant proposal and may inspire you to expand or improve upon past sessions. Sometimes proposals are rejected not because they are poor quality, but because a very similar presentation was already given. Please note that we consider audience feedback from past sessions as part of the selection process for current submissions. You can review the accepted didactics from prior Annual Meetings by clicking on SAEM23 or SAEM24
• Remember that the submission pool can vary significantly from year to year. Your didactic submission will be compared to submissions in the same focus area or topic. The number and quality of submissions in each topic can vary widely from year to year. Similarly, some years will have more 20 vs. 50-minute slots available in your focus area. Because of this, your submission may be highly competitive in some years and less competitive in others. We encourage you to remain open to revision, resubmission in subsequent years, or submitting to other SAEM speaking venues. You are always welcome to reach out to us for further guidance.
  

APPENDIX

Examples of behavioral/measurable terms.

Your learning objectives should be stated using these terms.