Is a PDA something I will really use??

Nursing Students General Students

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Hello all,

I am currently in an RN program, after this semester I will have 2 more to go. I am considering buying a PDA to put my drugs in because many of the senior students have recommended this, now my question, is it really a good investment. They are not excately cheap and I don't want to buy it if I never use it...

Has anyone else heard of buying a PDA? Do you use it often?

I bought a PDA recently and installed some programs such as RN notes, Davis's drug guide, Taber's medical dictionary, and a lab guide reference on it. PDA's are there for more of a convinience. It's nice to be able to pull one out of your pocket to look up info on a drug or term you don't know rather than having to walk back to the desk and flip through a 3 inch book for it. Plus you can schedule stuff on it, take notes, ect..

PDA's can do whatever you want them to do as long as you have the program for it. They cost money, but that's expected. In my opinion, they're worth it. I'll be using mine a lot. If you don't see yourself using it often, then think hard about if you want to lay out a few hundred bucks for one.

Specializes in Adolescent Psych, PICU.

I have the Palm TX and love it. I use it everyday both for school and my life.

Yes, they are expensive and no you don't need one (as you know) but they ARE nice, very nice to have. I love being able to look up a drug in about 3 seconds. I love having everything in my pocket instead of in my backpack.

I also really like the Documents to Go! I have all my careplans, drug sheets, clincal sheets, powerpoints from class, etc. It has Word, Excell, Powerpoint, etc on it as well.

Hello all,

I am currently in an RN program, after this semester I will have 2 more to go. I am considering buying a PDA to put my drugs in because many of the senior students have recommended this, now my question, is it really a good investment. They are not excately cheap and I don't want to buy it if I never use it...

Has anyone else heard of buying a PDA? Do you use it often?

I have a PDA but used it B4 Nursing school to manage my schedule and to have all my contacts in one place without having to transfer them all to a cell phone.

the advantage of a PDA for drugs is you can buy a drug program that updates each time you sync; therefore your drug book does not become outdated each year. It is smaller than a book, true, but it is just as easy to look it up in a book. In fact, the book tends to have more information and is, by far, easier to read. The basic bones Epocrates is even free, so subtract the price of a drug book from your PDA cost.

I don't use the Documents to Go etc. those kind of things seem worthless to me when you are squinting at a 4 inch screen. And I already have an extensive medical vocabulary and never have had to look anything up in Taber's, so that's useless to me as well.

You can buy entry level PDA's for $99 and give it a try for a year or so. After that time you can decide if you need the bells and whistles of a more expensive model.

Specializes in retail NP.

you know, in nursing school for care plans and stuff i never used my palm. but now that i'm about to start a new grad program in the PICU, i'm trying to reconfigure it and find some good pedi-dosage stuff. so no, i didn't use it in school, but i plan to in "the real world"

Specializes in Cardiac/Telemetry.

It seems that in clinical when I had it in my pocket, I didn't need it. But, if I left it at home, I needed it several times during my shift. I have Tabors dict, Davis drug guide and Davis lab values on it. I have a Lifedrive.

Specializes in Emergency.

I got a PDA this year, and I've used it a little on the medical floor I had clinicals on, but it wasn't really needed. I'm expecting I'll use it far more in the ER for my preceptorship b/c I'll be seeing alot more meds/terms/diagnoses that I'm unfamiliar with. Plus, I've already downloaded about 40 policies/protocols for the hospital onto my PDA for quick reference.

Try checking out this thread: How Does a PDA Help You During School Clinicals

Everyone is right, convienance is the big advantage when you can cram 1000's of pages of medical books, drugs, and learning into something that can fit in your pocket. I use it often on my rotations not just for assignments. When I do not know something, a medical condition, drugs, etc I look them up to understand what is going on with the patients I am caring for in my clinicals. It definitely helps me understand conditions and etiology better than sitting in a classroom. If you have the money, it might be of some use.

Specializes in Emergency.

I use my PDA all the time, in class and especially clinicals. My classmates call it "the thing" as in "Can you look up so-and-so on the thing?"

I have a Dell Axim X30 with the Davis Drug Guide (double check those meds), RNotes (how do I do that again?), Tabers (what does that word mean?), RnDxtests (they're goin' where for what?) and Archimedes (double check the ole math) loaded. I'm getting more comfortable in my knowledge, but still like to be able to verify things before I do them if necessary. I consider my PDA to be a tool just like my stethoscope.

The PDA has 32mb onboard and a 125mb memory card. The PDA (with the card) cost $115 on E-Bay. It was new in the box. It's considered a low-end unit, but all I use it for is nursing reference so the power is more than sufficient.

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