Technical Program

Plenary III - Pioneer Lecture: Seeing Our Way Clear: The Challenge of Creating and Communicating in Chaotic Times - Jan Phillips

Concurrent E - HeSCA Showcase (Tuesday 6/26 8:00am - 11:30am)

- A Review of Health Sciences Communications Professionals Continuing Education Needs

- Pondering Distance: Questions to Ask Faculty When Designing Courses for On-line Delivery

- Creating Dynamic Poster Displays with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop
- Web Content Management for Medical Centers
- Developing Interactive Biomedical Animations using Macromedia Flash

Concurrent F - Digital Techniques (Tuesday 6/26 at  9:00am)

- The Power of PowerPoint Plug-Ins

- Digital Group Pictures

- Powerful PowerPoint Presentations

Concurrent H - InfoShare (Tuesday 6/26 at 1:30) 

Honors Reception

Honors Banquet

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A Review of Health Sciences Communications Professionals Continuing Education Needs

Karen I. Adsit, EdD, Director, Walker Teaching Resource Center

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

This presentation will outline the results from a continuing education needs assessment survey conducted during the fall of 2000 of health communications professionals from AMI, ABCD, HeSCA and BCA. Questions to be addressed will be: What kinds of continuing education opportunities does this population need? What topics do the workforce see as pertinent? Who are the best providers to meet these continuing education needs? What is the best way to deliver continuing education needs? What are the barriers to participating in continuing education opportunities? Are there differences in the needs based on age or stage in career? Final results of the survey will be presented and discussed with implications for meeting these needs.

Pondering Distance: Questions to Ask Faculty When Designing Courses for On-line Delivery

Ellen (Marino) Nathan, M.Ed., Instructional Technology Coordinator

Butler University, Information Resources Department

Translation of traditional classroom materials into a dynamic on-line course requires more that just saving documents into html files and launching them onto a web site. Planning on how to create an educational experience where face to face interaction with students is limited is the key. Based on experiences of an instructional designer collaborating with faculty to develop on-line courses, this presentation will describe key questions to answer that will assist with on-line course development.

Creating Dynamic Poster Displays with Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop

Robin Fisher, Graphic Designer, Biomedical Communications/Learning Resources

J. H. Quillen College of Medicine

The plethora of graphics software programs available has created a maze of choices for the designer or medical faculty/staff member wishing to create effective scientific posters. Popular programs such as PowerPoint®, PageMaker®, Illustrator® and Photoshop® are so complex that anyone unfamiliar with the software can become bogged down by their profusion of features. A steep learning curve can keep the user from resolving even the simplest design problem, much less a scientific poster.

I will present a fast, flexible and cost-effective means of electronically creating attractive posters utilizing a combination of Adobe Illustrator® and Photoshop®. These roll-up digital posters (one-piece murals) have become preferred by customers over modular posters (i.e., separate components mounted on mat board). They are faster and easier to produce, allow for more sophisticated design solutions, and, being lighter, are generally easier to transport.

The presentation is divided into three parts:

1) Planning: using a designer/client checklist and organizing materials

2) Design/Production: setting up your document, typesetting and fonts, graphic file formats, shortcuts, working cross platform, file sizes and memory, and design tips

3) Proofing/Output of Job/Archiving: pdfs vs. hard copies, choosing print and lamination materials, working with service

bureaus vs. printing "in house," and archiving. Detailed notes for all participants will be provided in addition to demonstrating "part 2" of the presentation. In addition, a portfolio of my poster designs will be on hand for participants to review. 

Robin Fisher has worked as a designer in the department of Biomedical Communications for the Quillen College of Medicine at East Tennessee State University since 1992. Prior to ETSU, she worked as a graphic artist in advertising. She graduated from Florida State University with a BA in visual communications in 1975.

Web Content Management for Medical Centers

Jamie Guth, Acting Director Public Affairs/Marketing, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center

How do you implement a web system that allows for decentralized web content maintenance, while maintaining a consistent look and feel? How do you create a site that meets the needs of patients and visitors, while decreasing the amount of time needed to keep information current? How do you set up an interactive system where all at one site patients can find a specialist in one city and a primary care physician in another, get disease-specific information, primers on upcoming visits and listings of appropriate support groups and other services in their local community?

This presentation will provide an overview of the types of software available to help health care providers/systems, including template creation, email reminders to update contents, and database-driven software. It will also show the makeup of the necessary team and how to work with outside vendors, through the experiences at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, a New Hampshire-wide healthcare system.

Developing Interactive Biomedical Animations using Macromedia Flash

Susanna Halpine, Artist-Biochemist, Playa del Ray, California

For Leonardo Da Vinci, a writer can represent a story with a pen, but a painter renders it "more easily satisfying and less tedious to understand." Traditional journals have become ineffectual in describing biochemical reaction, while changes in conformation, rotation, and molecular "docking" are readily perceived through animation.

The computer offers a new medium, distinct from print and TV and Macromedia Flash provides the tools to exploit it. With scaleable vector graphics, interactivity, and open-source code, Flash has brought the Internet of age. Educators can now take a "right-brain" approach to teaching science and medicine, translating topics into nonlinear formats such as animation, with hyperlinks to in-depth information and printouts for take-away messages. Animations can reach past math/science-fear, across linguistic and age barriers, to instruct students from kindergarten to adult education. Advances in chemistry now influences day-to-day decisions within courtrooms, kitchens, and voting booths. We can no longer ignore populations that learn through non-textual means.

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The Power of PowerPoint Plug-Ins

Sam Giannavola

Through the use of free or low cost add-ins (programs that work within or as an aid to PPT), there are many functions which can be automated to make PPT a more powerful and more efficient tool.  Among the functions to be discussed will be batch importation of raster  graphics, creating a truly executable file from any PPT presentation, creating a CD that will automatically run a PPT presentation on a computer with or without PowerPoint being on that machine, and more.  All these add-ins are easy to use and readily available at little or no cost.

Digital Group Pictures

by Sue Loomis

I will discuss the preparation: group meetings and advertisements; the photography: 4x5 camera, grouping people, and taking nine different photographs in three days; scanning the film, the merging images and adding text; printing the 6’ x 3’ image; hanging the image and the unveiling; also producing and distributing 11x14 prints.  I will include the good, the bad, and the ugly of the whole experience.

Susanne Loomis is the Production Coordinator for the Radiology Educational Media Services Department at Massachusetts General Hospital. She has been working in the field for over 14 years. Sue graduated from RIT with a Masters degree in Cross-Disciplinary Studies and a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Photographic Communications. She also has two other Bachelor of Science degrees: Fine Art Photography, and Health and Physical Education.

Powerful PowerPoint Presentations

Gordon Brown

Gordon will present to attendees who want to learn how to produce convincing PowerPoint slide presentations the easiest, most straightforward, graphic, and creative way.  Photographers who want to show their photographs in on-screen shows, or who want to

make 35 mm slides and avoid the most common mistakes.  Microsoft PowerPoint is a powerful presentation program that has many options, perhaps too many. When you are putting a presentation together it is sometimes difficult to know if you doing the right thing.

Are the files too large? Is the program too slow? Why are my graphics so bad? Is this the

best way of doing it? What are the tricks of the trade?  He will illustrate his program using the same techniques that he will be explaining. During the program you will see the majority

of the applications within PowerPoint actually being used.

During this program, Gordon will demonstrate, explain, and show you how to produce the following;

Page setup, Sample Presentations, Template design, Slide layouts, Color Schemes, Graphic file folders, Digital files, Imaging software, Pixel size, Inserting pictures, JPG, GIF, GIF 89a files, Arrange images, Graphics, Acquiring photos, Picture CD, Screen Capture, Scanning for presentation, Menu "Secrets", B/W notes, File sorting, Menus explained, Hyperlinks, Slide transitions, Animations, Avoiding problems, Photo CD, Making 35 mm slides and Finishing your show.

Gordon Brown is a consultant for the Digital and Applied Imaging Division of Eastman Kodak and has been producing PowerPoint presentations for Kodak for more than ten years.

More about Gordon Brown here.

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