How important is a PDA?

[HisTreasure, BSN, RN]

I won an auction on Ebay for a Sony Clie PEG-SJ22 pda. It's only $47 with s&h (which of course was $14 :angryfire ) but my husband is pi**y mad because we are on a tight budget and he feels it is not a necessary expense. I am obligated to buy, so I will, and I'll have to bite the bullet later...but I'm feeling really guilty. I don't want to use limited family finances on something completely useless. Is he right? Is a pda a waste of money for a nursing student? I know there is a lot of medical software for them. Are any of the softwares free?

[suzanne4, RN]

You will love your PDA. It will make your life so much easier.

Tell your husband that it is a needed expense.

[psychomachia]

You will love your PDA. It will make your life so much easier.

Tell your husband that it is a needed expense.

Also, it's tax deductible.

[FutureNurse2005]

just be sure you are allowed to use it in your program. My school does not allow "toys" for classes and clinicals.

[sagelola]

I know several people that have one...some use theirs a lot, others don't. I still have not seen anyone use it in clinicals. My good friend got one for Christmas as she was starting the program in January. She says it is handy sometimes, but she really doesn't use it that much.

[studentnurse74, LPN, LVN]

Are they hard to figure out how to work? I'm not too good with "techy stuff". I've also seen some that are only around $20, they must be just organizers??

[BamaGirlRN]

No one in our class had one, must not be the thing down here.

We all survived without gadgets just fine.

[epg_pei]

But every tool helps I find. To illustrate: my instructor and I were mulling over the MAR of a psych patient, not recognizing several non-psych medications. While she struggled in vain to find them in the CPS (don't know what my American friends call it, it's the big blue book of pharmacology), I simply pulled out my Pocket PC with Tarascon Pharmacopeia and located every single drug as quickly as I could tap the screen. Another patient was exhibiting physical symptoms not recognized by staff as associated with his diagnosis or meds. I could have used the 5 Minute clinical consult, or similar, to help answer their questions. So Palms/Pocket PCs are a useful tool, as any other tool is, in the right place at the right time for the right purpose. As I have discovered, the won't make you smarter. But the can help you work smarter.

PS: Sony has discontinued development of future Clie models for the US, so there may be some deals to be had soon.

http://www.brighthand.com/article/sayonara_clie

[or-nery]

I was given the PDA, but I had to fork out money for the memory stick storage $$ media, since the PDA memory will not hold a lot of large nursing /drug programs. And buy some programs $$..but there is free stuff as well.

I will say it is lots of fun to play with...we'll see if it is actually functional during school.