To understand why a study abstract is important to scientific communication. To understand the process by which abstracts are selected for presentation at scientific conferences. To learn the features which unite successful abstract submissions.

1. @starsurgUK | www.starsurg.org
Producing a (successful)*
Abstract with Impact
Dr Ed Fitzgerald
@DrEdFitzgerald
* Course delegates submit abstracts to Conferences at their own risk. Past
performance at abstract writing is no guarantee of future success. The value of
abstracts can go up and down with the conference market and you may not get
rewarded for all the effort you put into it. If in doubt about submitting an abstract
always seek senior guidance.

2. Aims
• To understand why a study abstract is
important to scientific communication.
• To understand the process by which abstracts
are selected for presentation at scientific
conferences.
• To learn the features which unite successful
abstract submissions.

3. Introduction
1. What is an abstract?
2. How do you write one?
3. How do you make it stand out?
4. Where to submit?
5. How are abstracts marked?
6. Why do abstracts get rejected?
7. Common abstract problems
8. Questions?

4. What is an abstract?

5. Why write one?
• Offers a brief synopsis of your work to the reader
• Summary of methodology, pertinent results, salient findings
1. Thesis
2. Paper (different types of abstract for different studies)
3. Audit
4. Conference presentation…
• Present your work
• Network with others
• Get your name known
• CV points for job applications, ARCP, research funding applications

6. Overview of abstract writing
• Why topic is important.
• What you set out to do.
• What you did.
• What you found.
• What that adds.
• Why that’s important.

7. How to write an abstract
• Plan it out and plan ahead!
• Pick conference you’re going to submit to in advance
• Run a project aimed at a submission date
• Get colleagues to help – buddy up with someone else
• Practice writing abstracts beforehand
• Nearly ½ ASiT abstracts submitted on final weekend
• Language
• Content
• Outcomes
• Scientific writing style

8. Key points
• Title
• Take time to think carefully about it!
• Sell the main result, ask a question, or … joke to stand out
(high risk strategy!)
• Background / Introduction / Aims
• Three sentences to sell what you’re doing and why its
relevant / of interest.
• Methods
• Briefly how you conducted the study
• Should not include anything you didn’t know when you
started (those are results!)

9. Key points
• Results / Findings
• Concise, important, with relevant statistical analysis if
appropriate
• Conclusions / Discussion
• Interpretation with practical outcomes as appropriate
to title and aims (and results!)
• What your results mean for future research / clinical
practice / patients etc as appropriate

10. Frequent questions
• Who to include as authors / what order?
• Order important: by involvement, with senior last
• Do not include authors (especially seniors) who have not approved it!
• Presenting already presented work?
• Local e.g. hospital audit meeting, local trainee meeting
• National e.g. ASiT
• International e.g. European Society of Coloproctology
• Presenting data already published?
• Declaration of interest?
• e.g. funding, previous presentation, etc

11. How I do it…
• Pick your conference carefully in advance:
• Identify a conference and deadline in advance
• Topic appropriate to the conference
• Level e.g. post-graduate, sub-specialist or generalist?
• Competition e.g. ASiT gets >1,000 abstracts submitted
• Research what gets accepted to the conference:
• Look at previously published abstracts
• Look at other peoples presentations when you’re there
• Get your work reviewed before submitting
• Know your deadline!!!

12. Where to submit?
• Ask around about conferences
• ASiT mailing list / website
• Postgrad centre posters
• Journal adverts / calendars
• Google topic/specialty interest
www.surgicalconferencefinder.com
www.medical.theconferencewebsite.com
• Just missed the deadline?
• Be nice to admin staff!
• You might still get it in…
• Conferences Need Abstracts
• You will pay to attend!

13. See what others are doing …
U.S. National Library of Medicine:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed

14. Example 1: Cross-sectional study
Are we teaching sufficient anatomy at medical school?
The opinions of newly qualified doctors
Clin Anat. 2008 Oct;21(7):718-24. 207 words
In recent decades wide-ranging changes have occurred in medical school curricula.
Time spent studying gross anatomy has declined amidst controversy as to how,
what and when teaching is best delivered. This reduced emphasis has led to concerns
amongst clinicians that a new generation of doctors are leaving medical school with
insufficient anatomical knowledge. Previous studies have established that medical
students value their anatomy teaching during medical school. None have sought to
establish views on the sufficiency of this teaching.
We investigate the opinions of newly qualified doctors at a UK medical school and
relate these opinions to career intentions and academic performance in the
setting of a traditional dissection and prosection based course.
Overall nearly half of respondents believe they received insufficient anatomy
teaching. A substantial proportion called for the integration of anatomy teaching
throughout the medical school course. Trainees intent on pursuing a surgical career
were more likely to believe anatomy teaching was insufficient than those pursuing a
non-surgical career, however overall there was no statistical difference in relation to
the mean for any individual career group.
This study adds to the current debates in anatomical sciences education, indicating
that overall, regardless of career intentions, new doctors perceive the need for
greater emphasis on anatomical teaching.

15. Example 2: Case Series
Bowel Resection for Gastrointestinal Endometriosis Has High Symptomatic
Recurrence Rates 150 words
Introduction: Endometriosis is a common oestrogen-dependent disorder. GI tract
involvement occurs in <5%. We examine outcomes for patients requiring bowel
resection in which endometriosis was identified.
Methods: Clinical notes reviewed.
Results: 42 cases identified. Clinical notes unavailable for 6. In 2 cases
endometriosis was incidental at resection for adenocarcinoma. For remaining 34
patients: mean age 39-years (range 26-56); sub-fertility: 13 (38%). Prior treatment:
ovarian suppression 13 (38%); hysterectomy and/or salpingo-oopherectomy 14
(41%). Excluding suspected appendicitis, frequent presenting symptoms were:
abdominal pain (63%), dysmenorrhoea (37%), change in bowel habit (23%),
menorrhagia (23%), rectal bleeding (23%), and dyspareunia (17%). GI
investigation failed to identify endometriosis as causal in 7 cases (27%). Alternative
diagnoses: colorectal cancer (4), Crohn’s (2) and diverticular disease (1).
Symptomatic endometrial recurrence occurred in 11 cases (37%); all had
undergone complete resection.
Conclusions: This series represents the largest reported outside North America and
identifies key demographics and presenting symptoms in GI endometriosis.

16. Example 3: Case Report
Tension Faecopneumothorax: A Rare Presentation of Colonic Diverticular Perforation
Introduction: Tension faecopneumothorax is rare, typically occurring following strangulation of a
diaphragmatic hernia. We report a case of colonic diverticular perforation presenting with
faecopneumothorax which developed into tension pneumothorax.
Case Report: A 69-year-old gentleman presented with abdominal pain,vomiting and erratic bowel
habit. Past history included left thoraco-abdominal oesophagectomy for gastro-oesophageal
junction adenocarcinoma. Examination revealed tachycardia,tachypnoeia and a distended,
peritonitic abdomen.Chest radiograph demonstrated pneumoperitoneum and left-sided
pneumothorax.The patient rapidly deteriorated due to tension pneumothorax. Immediate
needle decompression and tube thoracocentesis released a large amount of air, followed by
faeculent fluid. Laparotomy revealed faecal peritonitis secondary to a large hepatic flexure
perforation. No pathology was noted in the hiatus area. Right hemicolectomy with end
ileostomy was performed. Histology was consistent with diverticular perforation.
Discussion: Intrathoracic intestinal herniation is a reported complication following
oesophagectomy. Although no visceral herniation was noted in our case, a diaphragmatic
defect was likely created during previous surgery. Diverticular perforation therefore resulted in
air and intestinal contents being transmitted from the peritoneal into the pleural cavity. This
explains the picture of generalised peritonitis complicated by pneumothorax, which rapidly
developed into tension faecopneumothorax. This case demonstrates that: 1) previous hiatal
surgery can predispose to pneumothorax and/or hydrothorax when a hollow viscus perforates
intraperitoneally, and 2) in the presence of pneumothorax, abdominal as well as pulmonary
causes should be ruled out.

17. What to include?
• Should be common sense: just report what you did!
• But you do need to know a little about writing up research/audit
• Study design?
• Aim or hypothesis?
• Type: audit (completed cycle?) vs observational vs experimental
• Retrospective vs prospective
• Selection / search strategy?
• How and why? Time period?
• Inclusion / exclusion criteria
• Cases vs papers vs patients
• Analysis: can you squeeze in a ‘p’ value somewhere?!

18. Marking Abstracts
• Often a painful process for markers as many to read!
• Not just accept / reject, mark may also decide oral / poster / prize session,
etc.
• Marking Criteria
• When scoring the abstracts please consider the following 10 points:
• Clarity
• Originality
• Appropriate methodology
• Appropriate results/analysis
• Appropriate conclusions
• Scientific merit
• Importance of message
• Overall impression/effort
• Relevance and interest to delegates
• Adherence to submission instructions

19. How to get accepted?
• Get an interesting question to answer, and answer it well!
• Get ideas from reading, ward work, other published research or seniors
“To do successful research, you don't need to know everything, you just
need to know of one thing that isn't known.”
Arthur Schawlow (1921–1999, American physicist)
“Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did
not discover it.”
Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947, English philosopher and mathematician)
“Basic research is like shooting an arrow into the air and, where it
lands, painting a target.”
Homer Burton Adkins (1892-1949, American organic chemist)

20. Why do abstracts get rejected?
• Simple answer:
• Didn’t score high enough compared to other submission
• Remember: abstract submission is a competitive process
• Summary of main reasons for abstract rejections:
• Content not relevant to conference: epic fail!
• Failure to follow submission guidelines
• Failure to format abstract correctly
• Unclear aims
• Incorrect or poor methodology
• Inadequate data collected
• Conclusions not supported by findings
• Overall the abstract just doesn’t add anything new or of interest to topic.

21. Evidence ladder
Easy but least likely
Difficult but most likely
Tricky one
Trickiest!
Some types of research abstracts are always more likely to
be rejected…

22. Caution: Impact is essential
• Case reports: extreme caution required!
• Reviews: method? systematic? synthesis? recommendations?
• Simple Audits: novel/interesting topic (+/- complete the loop)
• Consent (actually plenty to be done, but please try something new)
• #NOF surgery/outcomes
• Enhanced recovery adherence/outcomes
• DVT prophylaxis (see exception below re novel data / size of data set)
• Prescribing (unless new or novel e.g. first experiences with Dabagatran)
• Simple presentation of results data without analysis
• Inappropriately small case series and/or data sets
• Is it really a surgical topic?!

23. Personal annoyances
• Not adhering to submission rules (arghhhhh!)
• Layout (aims, method, results, conclusion)
• Author/affiliation in the title box
• Number of abstract submissions
• Abbreviations I don’t understand
• Too wordy / waffling / vague
• Unclear (aims / results / conclusions)
• Speling and grammer miskates
• Explain significance of results
• Matching title, aims and conclusions
• Appropriateness for conference you are submitting to!
• E.g. ASiT unlikely to accept geriatrics, stroke medicine, etc if no
surgical relevance!

24. Abstract rejection
• Dealing with rejection…
• Don’t give up!
• It’s not personal
• Probably a good reason
• See what you can learn from it
• Unlikely to get feedback from conference markers
• If you haven’t already, get someone knowledgeable to review it
• Consider going along to conference anyway to see how others did it
• Like any other sport, you get better at it the more you practice
• So just suck it up and do it again!
• Competition will vary year-to-year

25. Summary
• Abstract writing starts with much more than just the
abstract!
• Plan ahead
• Identify somewhere to submit
• Work to a submission deadline
• Get a question to try and answer
• Answer it well!
• Get senior help, and work with friends
• Write scientifically
• Follow the submission rules
• Try not to submit at the last minute (yes I know, I always do too...)

26. Finally …
Remember:
1. Conferences need to accept abstracts for presentation
2. Abstract writing is a competitive contact sport
3. You’ve got to be in it to win it
4. Sell it, baby

27. Any questions?

28. www.STARSurg.org