A lecture...

Last Saturday, I took a class on Anaesthesia for Severe Pre-Eclampsia, and it was by best lecture...reason was simple, I saw few YouTube videos on the same subject prior to my lecture and found my lecture was much better. Interestingly, on the eve of World Anaesthesia Day which is annually celebrated on October 16, on the anniversary of the first use of ether anaesthesia by William T. G. Morton, I would love to write on how to deliver a lecture effectively. The classroom lecture is a special form of communication in which voice, diction, vocabulary, gesture, movement, facial expression, and eye contact do matter a lot. Share your outline with your students and emphasize your objectives and key points in the beginning. Start with a story from your personal experience. Use humour... a joke, but not too often. Have a test or a quiz in between your lecture without offending the knowledge of your students. Creating a welcoming learning environment and making students feel comfortable and important is essential, needless to say, you must know their names and their limitations. I hate teachers using abbreviations too often and expecting the students to know the meaning without explaining the abbreviation. I often attend many conferences where I find the speakers expect you to know the meaning of the abbreviations and he doesn't care to explain the abbreviation. It is like attending a wedding, where an elderly gentleman wants to know whether you have recognized and placed him without introducing himself. Incidentally, you end up spending rest of the wedding trying to figure out who could be that gentleman. Col Pendyala Pradeep, Anaesthesiologist.