Abstracts are spaced 15 minutes apart with spacing for presentation, discussion and closing as follows:

• Slides: 10 min
• Discussant / Q&A: 3 minutes
• Closer: 1 minute
• Transition: 1 minute

Suggestions for slides (Put on thumb drive for AV staff to load up):

• 1 slide: identify problem and background
• 1 slide: state objective of study
• 1 slide: identify patient selection
• 1 slide: state methods of data collection
• 1 slide: main outcome result
• 1 slide: secondary outcome result
• 1 slide: state conclusions
• Format all 16:9 (wide format)

Original Scientific Abstract presentations will be during one of four two-hour sessions, two on Friday and two on Saturday.

Please check the agenda to confirm which day and which time(s) you are presenting.

Arrive at least 60 minutes before your presentation. Bring the presentation (Power Point, etc) on a thumb drive to hand to the audio-visual desk. It will be in the back of the room. At the podium you will have a monitor and a “clicker” to advance your slides. Note that ‘presenter mode’ is not available at the podium; please print and bring your speaker notes separately.

Original Scientific Abstracts for 2024, sorted in presentation order will be available on the NPSA website near the time of presentation.

Discussants

A robust scientific debate is of great importance to the NPSA. So, our meeting includes discussants and closers for papers. A discussant is an NPSA member who has reviewed the paper and has prepared questions. Abstracts in the resident competition will be assigned a discussant; a member of the NPSA. There will be 3 minutes for discussion and Q and A with a 1-minute warning. Presenters are responsible for sending their manuscript in advance to the person who has been assigned as the discussant.

If you don’t have it ready by the time it is due, it is helpful for the discussant to have more information than just the abstract, so send whatever you have ready.

Please send a few days in advance so the discussant can prepare. If you are not sure of the discussion assignment, email us at admin@surgicalcs.com.

NPSA Abstract Presenter Instructions

The North Pacific Surgical Association will also reach out to all presenters with contact information for their discussant.

Presenters are required to submit a draft of their manuscript to their discussant by the date the NPSA leadership sets. It is also encouraged that presenters forward a draft copy of the PowerPoint presentation and script.

Two moderators will field questions live with the abstract presenter during a

3-minute period after the presentation. In the event a discussant is unable to attend, they should send their questions to the moderators or email them to admin@surgicalcs.com.

Moderators are listed in the agenda. 

Closers 

Abstracts in the resident competition must have a senior author or NPSA member close the paper. One minute is allowed.

Presenters who are trainees are not the preferred closer for their own papers.

American Journal of Surgery Submission

All presenters with accepted abstracts will be required to submit a completed manuscript to the American Journal of Surgery.

Please await an email from AJS which will provide an invitation to submit. It will contain a link with submission instructions. This may arrive before the meeting. As some authors may elect to incorporate revisions to their manuscript from the discussions at the meeting, the deadline for manuscript submissions will be set by the NPSA Recorder. It is usually the week after the meeting. 

In the meantime, please begin preparing your paper. As always, the paper should be prepared according to the directions for Affiliated Societies, which are available on-line on the AJS homepage or in the back of each issue of the AJS.

This year we are striving to stay within our page restrictions, so that everyone’s paper can get published. To do this we need to keep our submissions as concise as possible.

We are striving for papers no longer than 4 pages of journal length (approx. 15 pages of text, references, and tables/figures). Here are some guidelines for keeping your paper concise:

Tips for writing a concise (4 journal pages) paper for the American Journal of Surgery (AJS):

• Title: no more than 15 words.

• Authors: No more than 6. All must have contributed to both paper and study. Eliminate, e.g. mentors who did not contribute to both, statisticians who did not contribute to both, people who only reviewed manuscript, surgeons who provided patients but no other input, etc. Put these people in a short sentence of acknowledgement at the end of the text.
• Abstract: 250 words or less-strictly enforced!
• Intro: 1 or 2 paragraphs that quickly get to why study was done.
• Methods: whenever possible refer to, rather than reiterate, previously published methods, instruments, etc.
• Results: Reduce text by putting data in text and figures. Use Results section to refer to data trends shown in tables and figures. In short, when it comes to data, text should not be redundant with tables and figures.

• Discussion: Six or seven paragraphs max.  Suggested outline: 

1. What the study showed (1 paragraph); 
2. How a few key findings support or contradict what is already published (2-3 paragraphs –

1 for each key point); 

3. Limitations of the study (if appropriate; 1 paragraph max); 
4. Implications/Future plans (1 paragraph).

• References: limit to 40 references. Use AJS references whenever possible. This raises the Journal’s impact factor.

• Tables and Figures: No duplication with text. “Boil down” tables. Remove all extraneous words and symbols. Use as few photos as possible to make the point.

Contact NPSA Recorder Dr. Laszlo Kiraly kiralyl@ohsu.edu with AJS publication questions.

Case Report/Case Series Presenter Instructions

This year at NPSA, to increase the participation of medical students and rural surgeons, we are dedicating one or two sessions for case presentations. Any / all are welcome to submit. Our aim is to group them by theme and allow the presentations to set the stage for a discussion by an expert panel (stump the professors). We will work with those who are accepted for case reports to follow a particular format which promotes this level of discussion. We encourage submissions of challenging cases, and especially of those conundrums which arise from resource-limited environments. 

We may have an opportunity to publish one or more of the submitted cases. Although AJS has a strict policy against case reports, our aim is to highlight unique aspects related to practice in the pacific northwest. We may invite authors to work with us to submit for a few sections such as (3) “My Thoughts” – editorials on emerging topics, (4) “My Surgical Practice” – lessons learned in surgical practice. The invitation to work with us on a submission by no means guarantees acceptance to AJS, which is at the discretion of the Recorder and the Editorial Board of AJS.

For questions and clarifications about the case reports submissions, please email surgery@wsu.edu.