Do I really Need one of these??

[LSUNursingStudent]

Hello ,

I'm a first year nursing student. Fundamentals is almost over. YAY!! But next semester i start Med Surg 1 and Psych. My question is this. What about purchasing a palm pilot. My parents offered to buy me one for classes but i cant decide if i would actually use it. A friend of mine also in fundamentals recently picked one up and bought a program to go with it that has has every resource you could imagine. Davis drug guide, drug calculations for switching between units, its amazing but will i get my money's worth out it? Thats the question.

Jay

[CityKat, BSN, RN]

I bought one this semester and like mine. I always have to update it, but I bought NCELX material to put on it too. I use PEPID and a Lippincott software for studying NCLEX information on the go. I would MUCH PREFER to carry a small palm pilot in exchange for my HUGE med surg I book:) Not to say that learning from your books isn't best, but if you're on your way to an appointment and don't feel like carrying your backpack to study on the way, this is an alternative for you.

~Kat

[WickedRedRN, BSN, RN]

I have one, LOVE mine, have Davis Drug guide, diagnostic and lab tests with values, a grade and assignment tracker, nursing proceedures and tabers on mine. I use it all the time in school, but unfortunatlely, I cannot take it to clincical, my school calls them HIPPA violations. *sigh* So, I lug a million pounds of books to clinical.[/quote

I am curious why they are HIPPA violations??

I asked and never really got a good answer, basically because they have wireless capability, I cannot take it into pt areas. Mine does not have the bluetooth or wireless enabled, but that made no difference. Said it would be easy for me to put confidential info on it. Made no sense to me either.

[Fun2, BSN, RN]

You're trusted with the patients' lives, but they are worried about confidentiality?

You see their charts, you take notes...how is an electronic device going to change the fact that of whether or not you can be trusted with patient records.

Crazy!!! Maybe someone got caught doing something they shouldn't have been doing and using a PDA to do it with.

(That all said, I don't know what the policy is at my choice school.)

[CarVsTree]

I have a really awesome PDA, but I never used one in clinicals. I have enough junk in my pockets! I can't imagine why you would need it, though. If there is a calcualtion to be done, I had to do it on paper, and if I needed to look it up, I just used the drug books on the floor.

I used my PDA all the time in clinicals. It had Drug Guide, Taber's, 5 Minute Clinical Consult. I once had a pt. who had a disease that stumped my instructor (20y ICU Nurse) and I found it in 5MCC on my PDA.

Also, not every floor on every hospital has a drug guide handy. Our drug guide at work is on our computers which students do not have access to w/o their instructor.

[KrysyRN, BSN]

I know absolutely zilch about PDAs, so thanks to the OP for posting her question.

I'm curious about where to find the programs to download on the PDA. Some of my textbooks come with a CD, but I've never really looked at the CDs. Is this what is downloaded? Or could I purchase programs at Best Buy?

I also think I heard that the Davis Drug guide on CD does not have as much info on it as the actual book. Does anyone know this to be true?