RMstudents Technology meets medical education

Hello all,

For my fellow classmates, I have decided to release my Palm Memos, a sprawling medical info database of almost 270 text files that contains the entire syllabus contents, heavily edited and supplemented, of Pathology, Pathophysiology, Microbiology, Psychopathology, Statistics, as well as many excerpts from 5 Minute Consult, Up to Date, First Aid, Step Up to Medicine, and countless other textbooks and resources, all easily accessible and searchable on the Palm Pilot.

The whole project started midway into my second year as I was exploring ways to memorize facts better.  Desperate as I was to raise my grades, I started to type up my notes and syllabi for use later as electronic flashcards or other memory aids, hoping that harnessing technology will somehow facilitate the learning process.  The information was initially saved as Excel spreadsheets in Q&A format, but then it occurred to me that I could just as easily convert them all into text format and carry all of them in a PDA to study anywhere.  So I began storing all my course notes into Palm Memos.  After clinical rotations started, I edited and supplemented the M2 course material even further, adding clinically relevant materials as I struggled through Internal Medicine, Family Medicine, and Pediatrics.  One big advantage about Palm Memos is that you can edit on the spot, correcting typos as you encounter them and adding or modifying notes as you get along through your rotation.  Even today, it’s still a constant, living work in progress that is evolving and struggling to adapt to the needs of the present.

I estimate that I use my notes on Palm Memos far more frequently than any of the commercial programs that I have used so far: Epocrates, Pharmacopeia, Harriet Lane, Washington Manual, others.  Why?  It’s so much more customizable and expandable--you can edit it and add whatever information you want the way you want.  I don’t have bulky, cumbersome flashcards or messy hand-written notes to deal with--they are all organized the way I like it and never get lost--everything is saved and backed up on Microsoft Outlook.  No more slow plowing through endless pages--you can jump and glide from section to section with the tap of your stylus.  To be sure, Palm Memos will never be the comprehensive clinical database that Up-to-date is, but it’s an important learning tool that makes life so much easier in reviewing and reinforcing whatever you learned or reviewed in the past.  These days, it’s so essential that I search them regularly while I read my textbook or study in odd places when no other reading materials are around--in short, I just can’t imagine studying without them anymore. 

Instructions:
Unzip the notes.pst file from notes.zip.
On Microsoft Outlook,
Go to Files,
Import and Export,
Choose Import from another program or file,"
Choose "Personal Folder File (.pst)"
Select notes.pst
Sync your Palm PDA.

A few caveats: The files are not meant to be exact replicas of the original syllabi--they are not meant to be a replacement for any textbooks either.  The Pathology sections do not have any of the chapters before the organ systems begin.  Immunology, Neurobiology, and Pharmacology are not represented well in the notes, although I’ve filled in some gaps by adding First Aid excerpts.  The notes are subject to errors--even though I have diligently corrected countless typos and misinformation as the months went by.  There are no citations with very few exceptions, and there is very little that is my own original work.  Everything was customized for my own learning purposes.  So keep these in mind, try them out for yourself, modify and compile them for your own use, and let me know if these are helpful.

Sincerely,

Shu James Muramoto
Rush Medical College, M3