PDA Heaven!

[Guest Ian Wong]

Heya,

 

You will want to approach your upper-class years for this kind of stuff. Rest assured that there is lots of cracked medical material out there for the PocketPC; I don't have any access to it.

 

I've actually stopped using my PDA for medical stuff recently, although I think this may have a lot to do with the fact that most of my work is now in ENT, and there's not a lot of useful software out for this specialty alone.

 

If you were to spend the cash on just one PocketPC program, I'd recommend 5 Minute Clinical Consult, which is available on PocketPC. Again, talk to your upper class years.

 

 

Ian

UBC, Med 4

[Guest saskmedman]

Just thought I'd also mention the site http://www.medicalmnemonics.com It has a mnemonics database for your palm which is extremely helpful. I have tons of other links for free medical programs but I'll have to come back and post them another time.

 

Rod

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

I quickly scrolled through the links above and didn't see this one included:

 

bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/324/7334/DC2

 

I just came upon the above while searching for something else on the BMJ site. Supposedly, they regularly update this site with new links to additional handheld resources.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest JSS02]

What do you guys think about the promotion at www.skyscape.com/promotion/PdaPromo.asp? Are all of those programs good?

 

Edit: Looks like they won't ship hardware to Canada. Oh well...

[Guest Ian Wong]

Our residency program got a talk from our IT department regarding this deal. I think only 2/40 people there were interested in the deal. Usually there's a bunch of CD's of medical software floating around your upperclassmen. I'd talk with the computer techie guys in your class (and every class has a few of them!) first prior to spending money purchasing these applications to, uh, demo out these programs before you buy them. One of the largest advantages to buying a Palm-based PDA is the amount of "free" medical software available for it, as opposed to PocketPC software, although I understand that there is stuff out there for it as well; just not in such abundant quantities.

 

Ian

[Guest MDCY]

I've just finished my internal medicine clerkship and I must say that if it were not for a little keygenerator for *coughskyskapecough* programs I would have shelled out too much money. My only advice for those looking for 'free software' from skyscape is to look for it using some type of search engine or ask your upperclassmen. The program is called frozenskyscape key generator. Please note that this program seems to only works for Palm OS, sorry Pocket PC owners.

 

Back to the topic of which PDA programs I'd suggest to purchase:

1. ePocrates-this is FREE for everybody and it's a great quick pharmacological reference-the nice feature included is the option to check multiple drug interactions simply by selecting up to 30 different medications individually and the program cross checks the potential adverse interactions for you. The only downside would be that it's based on US medications.

2. eMedicine-I use this reference several times a day on wards. I find this much more useful than Harrison's, Ferris, or Washington Manual as it provides a more detailed in-depth up to date discussion. On any given topic it gives an introduction, clinical presentation, differentials, workup, treatment, medications.

3. ABCLabData-this is the only laboratory data reference you will ever really need on wards. On any given topic like "natriuretic peptide, B-type" it gives explains what it is and how it is usually used and it then gives a list of conditions associated with increased or decreased levels and what that means. It's an excellent program. I've been pimped so many times on what the differential is on a particular abnormal lab data value and this has saved me on countless occasions in anticipation of those questions.

 

Hope this helps.

[Guest Ian Wong]

Floating back to the top...

 

Ian