Does anyone NOT have a iphone or blackberry?

[nope80]

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okay so i'm trying to figure if I need to spend the $$ to get a blackberry or iphone for third year. I'm starting with ob-gyn and am trying to figure out how necessary it is and how useful it will be. Any suggestions? Do the majority of people have them? I have pretest and casefiles that seem small enough to carry around but if its worth the $$ i don't have a problem paying..i just didn't know if there was a way around it.

Please advise🙂 🙂

 

[rock_climber]

you definetely don't need one. i have a touch that i use all the time at the hospital - we have wifi everywhere so it is a much more economical option - all the features of the iphone sans the 3G coverage (and the phone bill that goes along with the iphone). i use my touch for scheduling and surfing the internet and epocrates and just have a flip phone for texting and phone calls. i plan to get a iphone before residency starts because that is when my contract with sprint is set to expire and it would be nice to have everything in one device. I actually don't use the touch that much for medical stuff when attendings or residents are around because i think it looks like i'm facebooking or checking the news or something - i still use a copy of pharmacopia for all things pharm.

 

[nope80]

so for ob-gyn which books do you think i should carry in my pocket? So the touch is like the iphone (internet) but without an actual phone? Do you think most people have these? I was thinking it would be helpful to look things up during rounds or at other times but is it worth the $$ is the question.

 

[DaveinDallas]

okay so i'm trying to figure if I need to spend the $$ to get a blackberry or iphone for third year. I'm starting with ob-gyn and am trying to figure out how necessary it is and how useful it will be. Any suggestions? Do the majority of people have them? I have pretest and casefiles that seem small enough to carry around but if its worth the $$ i don't have a problem paying..i just didn't know if there was a way around it.

Please advise🙂 🙂

We were required at the start of our 2nd year to purchase a PDA of some sort (stand alone or integrated with a phone). The stated objective was to make us familiar with the software that was required in 2nd year so we could use it on 3rd year clerkships.

I lost my PDA phone in the middle of 3rd year and never missed it. I can count on the fingers of one hand the amount of times I tried to use it in 3rd year only to find it didn't have the info I needed. So I quickly grabbed a pocket pharacopeia and a doctorsintraining.com residents handbook and never looked back.

If I didn't know any better, I'd swear that we were required to buy the PDA and our computers so it would look good on a sales brochure - 'Our students all use the latest in electronic medical literature' or some such nonsense.

But that's me. You may like having all the electronic toys. If nothing else, you can surf the web while standing around waiting on your attending/resident.

Go grab Step Up to Step 2 and memorize the relevant section for your clerkship, read casefiles for your clerkship and you should have all the technical info you need. Then it's just a matter of learning how to do the daily work.....

 

[mangobug]

I have a palm treo. I guess if you're looking for a new phone, you just have to play with all of them to see which you prefer. I agree with rock_climber that whenever I'm looking up stuff on epocrates I'm always worried my attending thinks I'm texting or something. It's definitely helpful, but I also think you can do without. I know some people who have gotten Current Clinical Strategies OB/GYN to keep around. I haven't had OB yet, so I couldn't tell you what to use from experience. I personally have the Washington Manual to also look stuff up quickly

 

[Substance]

I don't have a PDA, because they're too expensive and do not add much value to your work.

Just carry around a little Tarascons for drug dosages. That's all you really need.

 

[rock_climber]

for OB, i didn't keep much of use in my pockets - a pregnancy wheel, pharmacopia, and my iTouch (used more when the attendings werent around to facebook, read the news, do uWISE questions, etc.) and lots of snacks! sometimes I kept casefiles in my coat as well if I knew i'd be out sitting around a lot, but i hate when my coat weighs 10 lbs so i tried to keep that to a minimum

 

[silas2642]

I don't have a PDA, because they're too expensive and do not add much value to your work.

Just carry around a little Tarascons for drug dosages. That's all you really need.

That's what the sub-I on my last rotation did and it worked out fine for him. That being said, I finally broke down and bought an iPhone. With the school discount I'm not paying much more than I was for my regular cell. So far I love it.

 

[MJB]

Have an iPhone and use it every single day. It's GREAT. Easily the best money I've spent. The ability to look anything up at the touch of a button (UpToDate) has been amazing.


And, I don't have to carry books...which I love.


I should add that I was already an AT&T customer with a Curve...so my monthly service price didn't change a bit.

 

[JStub]

I have a blackberry and use it all the time. I can keep up with my emails and have medicine references at all times. I highly recommend it.

 

[45408]

Don't forget that an iPhone will cost you probably $1300+ per year. It's a great phone, but it's really expensive. You could buy an iPod Touch for like $300 and not have to pay the additional monthly fee. I was recently tempted to buy an iPhone, or at least a Touch, but I resisted. And then I found Google calendar to help me with my schedule...it's awesome.

 

[NERDY]

I have a BlackBerry but I don't get Internet reception everyplace (ie basement) so the phone becomes useless in those situations.

 

[calvinNhobbes]

I highly recommend getting a smart phone and have your main email account forwarded to you. This will become extremely important next year when applying to residency, especially for very competitive fields. You will get emailed interview offers and will have literally minutes to respond to get the day you want. In some cases more offers are made than spots and you will go on the wait list if you do not respond fast enough.

 

[ShyRem]

I have a touch (no phone). I already have a phone with a great rate so I didn't want to spend the $$$ for the ridiculous AT&T rates and poor coverage.

I used that thing every day... the residents were even asking me to look stuff up on it. I put most of my textbooks on it so my pockets were definitely lighter (skyscape). There was also an app for my procedure logger I used a lot. I had no music and nothing like facebook on my touch, but did check my mail during the day.

Bottom line: some people will use it constantly, find it almost indispensible, others won't use it at all. What kind of person are you?

 

[silverjelly]

How do you know what kind of person you are before you start?

Personally, I could see it either way so I'm really undecided...

 

[MJB]

What's fun is when the attending physician doesn't "get it" that you have HARRISON's (and LOTS of other books/sources) on your iPhone...so you ARE reading all the time.

 

[ZipsPwn]

When I started rotations I got a Dell Axim on e-bay for 35 bucks. It's above and beyond the functionality I needed and without the expense of trendiness.