BMJ  2007;335:1292 (22 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.38994.480845.DE

Filler

A day in the life of a doctor

The PowerPoint presentation

¹ Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Children’s Hospital at Westmead, Sydney, Australia, ² Waltham Forest Child and Family Consultation Service, London, ³ Department of Respiratory Medicine, Children’s Hospital at Westmead

The main purpose of a PowerPoint presentation is entertainment. Intellectual content is an unwarranted distraction. In preparing a PowerPoint presentation, aesthetics should transcend substance.

The background colour scheme and logo for your slides should be selected for maximum emetogenic potential. The first inverse ridicule rule of PowerPoint presentation states: "The more lines of writing that can be coerced onto a slide and the smaller the font, the lower the risk of anyone criticising any data which has accidentally been included." The second rule states: "The number of slides you can show in your allotted time is inversely proportional to the number of awkward questions which can be asked at the end." PowerPoint has superseded the carousel era, when presentations were severely limited by the number of slots in the slide carousel and the risk of dropping the lot seconds before your talk.

Plagiarism laws do not apply to PowerPoint, so cartoons of marginal relevance but high entertainment value can be downloaded and shown at suitable intervals to maintain audience mirth while minimising critical capacity. Research has shown that the ideal cartoon:data ratio is 5:1.

The seasoned PowerPoint artist or PowerPointilliste has refined the presentation into a son-et-lumiere extravaganza, in which scattered dots and luminescent clumps of meaningless datasets hurtle on to the screen from all points of the compass, to the strident strains of Handel’s Fireworks Music, building inexorably to a Fantasia-style Sorcerer’s Apprentice climax. This fulfils an important subsidiary purpose of the PowerPoint presentation—to act as a bioassay of the epileptic threshold of the audience, a form of PowerPoint EEG.

PowerPoint has spawned a number of hitherto unrecognised medical diseases. These include PowerPoint phobia (PPP), PowerPoint stress disorder (PPSD), and a virulent form of major depression called PowerPointlessness.

Yet another purpose of the PowerPoint presentation is to test the capacity of the regional electricity grid. In case this should be found wanting, and your presentation succeeds in fusing the power supply to the surrounding region, it is advisable to have a back-up presentation, a box of matches and a Chinese lantern.

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Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

All roads lead to Rome

E.S. Prakash
bmj.com, 22 Dec 2007 [Full text]

Make a point with the power

Kavita Singhal, et al.
bmj.com, 24 Dec 2007 [Full text]

Who wrote the law that mandates PowerPoint?

Stephen D. Simon
bmj.com, 27 Dec 2007 [Full text]