Should iPads be mandatory in medical school? ... Blog by Joseph Kim, MD, MPH

[CC-Conrad Clyburn-MedForeSight]

Colleagues,

One of MedTech-IQ's members, Joseph Kim, MD, MPH, is also one of the Internet's top medical bloggers. Please see one his recent posts at medpageTODAY's KevinMD.com , "An iPad should be mandatory in medical school", http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2010/04/ipad-mandatory-medical-school.html ...

See excerpts below ...

ENJOY!

CC
--------------------------------------------------------------------

We’ve heard of several medical schools requiring students to use either an Apple iPhone or iPod touch, but what about the iPad?

Some schools have been experimenting with digital e-book readers like the Amazon Kindle. Medical textbooks are frequently filled with photos and other color-rich images, so the grayscale Kindle isn’t the ideal e-book reader for medical students who wish to carry their textbooks electronically. This is where the Apple iPad could revolutionize the way medical students learn...

... Since I’m a technology advocate, I could make several compelling arguments to say that interactive learning is much more effective than traditional lectures and didactic education...

... The average pre-med college student is probably tech-savvy and digitally connected via a smartphone, several social media accounts, and a laptop computer. If you hand that student an iPad filled with medical
textbooks and multimedia resources, will that student learn effectively? I would think so.

Joseph Kim is a physician-executive who blogs at Mobile Health Computing.