PDA to use on Med School Ward Rotations ??

[Sttesuhc]

Hi everyone-

Any mac users here who are also working in healthcare or hospital settings with a PDA?

I'm planning to get a PDA (probably Palm TX) for use in my 3rd year of medical school. I want to make sure it will sync with the Windows PCs in the library that offer free updated software. I also would really like the PDA to sync with my iBook at home for general organizational tasks.

Will this plan work? How easy will this be? Will I constantly be changing and correcting mistakes that happen in transfer b/c of Windows/Mac?

Thanks for any help!

 

[Sttesuhc]

To follow-up and clarify...

My main question is pretty basic-
How easy is it to maintain Palm TX sync on both Windows and Mac platforms? ie-- I know it can be done, but what issues do I need to worry about, and would those issues make a person inclined to use Windows exclusively?

With the whole hospital angle-
I'm mainly wondering if there's a need to sync to hospital systems or if there are any considerations I'm overlooking about using a Windows/Mac syncing PDA in a hospital.

Thanks everyone!

 

[Sttesuhc]

bump in case someone has any info

 

[gog]

Hello there

I think the best value-for-money palm is the Tungsten E2. Mind you, i bought mine a year or so back, so that may have changed. It is a solid palm, without the frilly bits you don't need.
I really don't forsee any problem whatsoever syncing between windows and mac. Setting up the palm to sync with your mac ical / address book can be a fiddle. You have to use iSync. Make sure you download the latest version of palm desktop from the palm site before you begin. Then follow the isync instructions.

I used my palm all the time at med school. Handy for jotting notes on, handy for keeping medicine databases on, and there are plenty of textbooks for palm which are variably useful. Ask me if you want any more advice, I've got this down to a bit of a fine art.

 

[Abstract]

I remember a database on my old old old Handspring Treo (Palm bought them, since they ran the Palm OS and yet were Palm's main competition back then), and it used to contain a list of medicine, and what diseases it could treat; vice versa, you could look up any disease, and they'd tell you what drugs to take, and what the normal dose range is for that drug. It also mentioned symptoms of each disease, and possible side effects of each drug type, along with a short list of the main ingredients contained in the drug (if the drug uses a generic name).