I’ll start with saying I get conference presentation anxiety, but I will get around to that. At the time of writing, I am in the middle of a busy summer. With a date for my viva, and thus a submission date locked in [1], my day-to-day is pretty monotonous: each and every hour of the working day is spent writing my thesis. That’s been the case for the past couple of months now, and thankfully a full draft is drawing ever closer. Next week, I will be heading off once again to attend a writing retreat, during which I intend to make a good start on my discussion – the final chapter I need to write.
While the thesis is the main item on my agenda, that’s not to say it’s the only thing I’ve been doing recently. For me, it has also been conference season – the two I’ve attended in July, being my first since before I went on maternity leave in 2023 [2].
At the first of the two conferences, the International Psychogeriatric Association Congress, which took place in the Netherlands, I had the opportunity to give an oral presentation about some of my PhD work. As I’ve mentioned before, I have been undertaking a conversation analytic study of advance care planning conversations between GPs, people with dementia, and their carers. Conversation analysis is pretty niche, and probably isn’t the most immediately accessible of qualitative methods for a general audience. As such, I was feeling apprehensive in the lead-up to the conference [3]. It was hard for me to gauge how to hit the right balance: I wanted my findings to be intelligible to those unfamiliar with the methods, without becoming so pedestrian that I could be called out on it if someone did happen to have expertise in the field.
One of the great things about conversation analysis is its reliance on naturalistic data. In the case of my PhD, I have made video recordings of actual GP consultations [4], in which advance care planning is discussed. I have permission from my participants to show (pseudonymised) clips of these recordings as part of my dissemination. This means that rather than relying on me to describe what’s happening, an audience can see for themselves. This was, though, a second source of anxiety. Being able to demonstrate your findings through video is great, but it does somewhat rely on the room being set up for it, and the tech doing what it’s supposed to – which we all know isn’t always the case.
A final source of angst was – obviously – the presentation itself [5]. It’s been almost three years since I last presented at a conference, and I can’t say I’m a huge fan of public speaking at the best of times. Part of the anxiety here is that my eyesight is pretty poor (even with corrective lenses), such that I can’t fall back on the safety net of speaker notes if I forget where I am in a presentation. As such, I really have to know what I intend to say. I’m also not a huge fan of the unknown quantity of dealing with audience questions: I can’t think of anything worse than not understanding the question, not being able to follow it if the question is unreasonably long (as is often the case), having no idea of the answer, and essentially having to fumble around in the dark to avoid sounding incompetent. Alas, with my viva fast approaching [6], that’s a fear I probably need to overcome…!
Despite my numerous concerns – with the additional alarming element of my primary supervisor being present to (potentially) witness my undoing – I can honestly say that the presentation was an enjoyable experience! The tech side of things went without a glitch, I successfully remembered what I intended to say, and the talk generated some really good discussion. It’s easy to compare others’ work to your own, and come to the conclusion that yours is too niche, or too obvious [7], and won’t be of interest to anyone else. By contrast, there were so many questions from the audience that showed real interest, such that I was able to talk about some of the other findings that fell outside of the scope of the presentation. All in all, it was a really positive experience – and will hopefully give me a bit more confidence for dealing with future conference presentations, but also for defending my thesis during my viva.
Putting the presentation to one side, attending the conference was in itself a success. Despite some last-minute panic thanks to the Eurostar being down, I really enjoyed my time in the Netherlands. The town was lovely, it was great to build relationships with colleagues old and new, and we even managed to find a table at a pub showing the England-DR Congo match (which was a vital priority for me).
And the biggest success of all? My toddler actually survived without me for four days – which also bodes well for my writing retreat next week. What more could I ask for?
Emily Spencer
Author
Emily Spencer [8] is a PhD Student at University College London looking at improving how GPs communicate with people with dementia and their family carers about their future care. Emily previously had a 5 year career break to pursue a career as a musician, and has previously undertaken research on improving the care people with dementia receive from their GP practice, as well as end-of-life and palliative care provision in the community. Emily is also a parent, and writes about her experiences balancing family life with a research career.