Anyone use a Kindle for nursing texts?

October 17, 2009

Yes.....

A few days ago my new Kindle2 arrived. I purchased and downloaded:

1. Davis's Drug Guide for Nurses
2. Tabers Medical Dictionary

I found that, at this period of time, the Kindle 2 is an absolutely wonderful................. IDEA .......... but I found that it is severely flawed if one decides to use the Kindle2 as their own personal reference 'book'.
The reason being is that the search capability does not work well AT ALL!

For example:

I attempted to look up 'Digoxin' and expected to easily find the appropriate recommended dosages and the Kindle2 device was unable to perform. Instead, many choices had come up with the word 'digoxin' but none lead to the dosage. I was very disappointed (especially since that I had spent some major $$$$ on the Kindle2 and the 'books' on it. This situation, in a hospital, would waste one's productivity time.

I've found that it would be much faster and easier to look up the information on a HARD-COPY version of an actual book than to use the Kindle2, for certain. (Again, HOPEFULLY this will change and hopefully, Amazon and Kindle will look into this issue before any more medical/nursing reference books are released for sale to the public.
And, hopefully, they can correct the Kindle reference books that they continue to sell, such as those very important and helpful nursing references, which I had purchased.

Also, the button on the Kindle2 device, labeled 'Aa', that allows a larger print, simply did NOT work and on some pages of Davis's Drug Guide for Nurses, the print was ultra tiny!
I do not wear glasses or contact lenses and the print was just way too tiny to view!
Technical support was made aware and could not resolve this issue.

I've also discovered that part of the problem remains with the publisher of the book who allow their books to be sold as a Kindle2 version. The programmer responsible for designing the 'Kindle version' of any particular book and the publisher of that book , and Amazon, seemingly all need to get together and work on making their 'Kindle books' work correctly BEFORE they release them for sale to the public!
(I certainly wish that I could have found a review such as mine as a warning to the public, ESPECIALLY to us nursing professionals who strive to give the best patient care possbile).
Most importantly, these people involved with the Kindle need to work on the search engine portion of the device.

Needles to say, I was very disappointed, BUT.....I immediately phoned the Kindle2 customer service department and I am in the process of obtaining my complete refund.
Customer service acknowledged that the Kindle2 device is still new and appreciated my feedback.

One last word:
I am sorry to say but I feel that it is thoughtless or perhaps false advertising when Amazon allows people to place reviews (which are definitely very helpful) ...............BUT.........there is no way to tell if a particular review was in regards to a Kindle version of a particular book OR in regards to HARD-COPY version.
That is NOT right..........SIMPLE TO CORRECT..........and AMAZON truly needs to do something about this.

I still enjoy shopping on Amazon very much and this fact will not change my mind about ever shopping on their website.
I will just avoid the Kindle for now until the companies involved can 'iron out their bugs.'
I have now 'been there, done that' regarding the Kindle2 device and am awaiting my refund.

I have great hopes for this product as I believe that it potentially could be a fantastic reference tool to bring to work someday if and when they do fix these above-mentioned issues.


I hope that my personal feedback may assist you in your decision!
Kathryn

There is an app I have on my ipod called eTextbooks for the iphone, by CourseSmart. You can load textbooks onto your iPhone to read on the go. The reviews on it have been a bit mixed, so I think it still has a way to go, but the reviewers who like it, really like it. I've downloaded it onto my iPod, so I'll post a review of it once I check it out.

Cheers;

DigitalYaz