Readers of iMedicalApps have been following the trend of medical schools to adopt the iPad for education activities. Thus far, we have reported on Stanford, University of Minnesota and University of California, Irvine. Subsequent reports have focused on the uses of the iPad for students, such as this report from a medical student at UC Irvine.
In a sign that benefits of the iPad are being recognized by more than just medical educators and students, last week the Orange County Register reported that an anonymous donor had given $1.2m to the iMedEd initiative at UCI, which includes iPad’s and textbooks.
The article also mentions that the university is “explor[ing] hand-held ultrasound equipment”. This could be related to the mobile ultrasound device by MobiSante, we wrote about in December. That device uses a Toshiba smartphone as the interface and was the subject of a New England Journal review article titled “Point-of-Care Ultrasonography”.
With regards to the experience of students at UCI, Dr. Warren Wiechmann, director of instructional technologies for the UC Irvine medical school was quoted as saying
I was extremely impressed with the students’ and faculty’s willingness to adopt a new piece of technology with no advanced notice and really integrate it into their daily use. … Our students have created new studying workflows that involve taking notes on their iPads, incorporating diagrams from their digital texts, syncing them across their laptops and other mobile devices, and sharing them with other students.
Hard to believe that this is only the second year of the tablet in medicine.
