Over the past several years, medical schools across the U.S. have started to provide students with portable electronic devices like the Apple iPod Touch or iPad, the Orlando Sentinel reports.
Medical schools are providing the devices to help students:
Access health care information while meeting with patients;
Listen to audio recordings of lectures; and
View diagrams.
Examples
Beginning this semester, the University of Central Florida’s College of Medicine is providing medical students with the iPod Touch. The device comes preloaded with medical applications that enable the students to find information on:
Medications;
Symptoms; and
Various diseases.
In 2007, Ohio State University’s College of Medicine became the first school to distribute iPod Touches to its students.
Since then, Florida State University also has provided the devices to its students, while Stanford University has opted for the larger iPad for its students.
Concerns
Some physicians have expressed concern that medical students will become too reliant on their portable devices for information.
However, Bethany Ballinger — director of clinical informatics at UCF and an emergency department physician — said that a mobile device does not “let students off the hook,” noting that students “can’t take it into an exam” (Lundy, Orlando Sentinel, 10/11).