Medical Handhelds

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Reavill

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I was wondering what everyone thinks about the latest Pocket PC/PDAs. I am thinking about purchasing an affordable handheld that I can use for medical stuff and organization during school. I understand that I'll need some extra memory etc for the medical software but what else has everyone else considered when purchasing a handheld?

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Most of the new handhelds have sufficient memory for all your medical applications.

You can presently get most commercial medical products on both pocket pcs and palms although there is a lot of free (and useful) material that is only on available for palms.

I've produced a website ( www.doctorsgadgets.com ) with a round up of the more popular handhelds (pocket pcs and palms) and a discussion forum where you can get your questions answered and download free application for pocket pcs, palms and other types of handheld.

Chris
 
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General feeling is that one is not needed during Years 1 & 2. A large number of 3rd and 4th years at my school have them, though it's still not completely necessary and certainly not a requirement.

I'm waiting until just before clerkships to start shopping for one.
 
i just got a sony clie as a first year. it is a 16MB palm and i'll be getting a memory card to add on software when third year comes. i'm not too worried about it being out-dated when clerkships roll around (which is only 16 months away). i mean, the thing has lots of memory, is color, and ucsf has a cd floating around that has every palm medical software you could think of floating around somewhere.

our curriculum has us running all over the place with multiple small groups, clinical groups, pbl, etc..and they have an online schedule that is downloadable to palms. i also got taber's medical dictionary for the palm and that is really helpful when you are studying away from your desk. lots of people use epocrates in small group and pbl as well to get quick info on pharm. i like it for having my schedule downloaded alone. it is so annoying to have to go online all the time to see what room your small group, your lecture, etc is. i think it really depends on the student.
 
Wait until 1 week before you start 3rd yr to purchase your handheld. The technology keeps getting better and better, and the prices keep going down. If you need help organizing stuff now, purchase a mini-scheduling book. It's lighter then a handheld and you will get less upset with yourself if you loose it. When you do finally purchase your handheld, make sure that it comes with as much RAM as possible. Even though most handhelds are expandable, I have found that acessing information on my expansion card is associated with a 2-3 second delay vs accessing information that is on the memory that came with the handheld. The largest amount of RAM that I was able to find for handheld was 16 MB, but I'm sure that in a couple of years they will produce handhelds with much more.
 
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