When Jose Carrillo went through medical school at Dartmouth College a decade ago, students would have thick books weighing down their white coats with reference information in case they needed it while making rounds.
Palm Pilots were big at the time, and there was some interest in using the devices in the medical field because they could run programs that included some of the information in the books. In later versions, the gadgets could beam information back and forth to one another wirelessly, and they even got color screens after he graduated, Carrillo remembers.
Technology marches on, and the iPad he uses today bears little resemblance to those earlier handhelds.
“We were so jazzed about those. Looking back at what that old Palm Pilot did in comparison to these,” Carrillo said, noting that the company that made it is long gone.
“It was nothing.”
Today, Carrillo is helping third-year medical students understand neurology at UCI Medical Center in Orange, their white coats weighed down by a gadget much larger and heavier than the Palm Pilot. But loaded on the iPads in the pockets of the medical students’ coats is every textbook, note, flash card and question from their first two years of medical school – so much information that its equal in printed copies once covered entire tables.
All that information sits on the iPad, along with an app that can access the electronic medical records of patients students interact with on their rounds, as well as the entirety of Web resources.
Apple last week singled out UCI’s trailblazing iMedEd Initiative as a distinguished program for its use of the company’s tablets. In addition, the medical school announced a 23 percent increase in scores, on average, on the initial test for a medical license taken by the first class to get iPads.
“Hopefully this will encourage other schools now that they can see it wasn’t a detriment,” said Dr. Warren Wiechmann, who heads up implementation of the program.
UCI is one of a number of schools in Orange County that have embraced Apple’s tablet as a learning tool, but the school is one of the first nationwide to move curriculum to the device as early and fully as it did. That left student doctors to help experienced doctors – their teachers – discover how best to use the iPad.
The gadget launched in April 2010, and by August an iPad was slipped into the iconic white coats of all the new medical students.
For UCI, costs have continued to increase as each new class is outfitted with tablets, textbooks and notes covering their education. The program initially launched with $120,000 in scholarship fundraising, but is now funded through 2015 with a $1.2 million donation from John Tu, co-founder of Fountain Valley’s Kingston Technology Co. The funding covers the hardware and the digital textbook content.
Now medical-school officials have to make a tough decision because the devices are already changing, as are the ways in which people use them.
Late last year, Apple introduced the iPad Mini, a less expensive device featuring a 7.9-inch screen instead of the 9.7-inch display on the original. The new device, however, runs all of the same apps as its larger sibling. So the trade-off is a somewhat smaller screen for a far lighter body.
Students such as 25-year-old Kalpit Shah, who was in the first class to get iPads, are being handed the Mini to test in their white coats as they walk miles around the hospital each day.
“It starts hurting our backs after a while,” he said of the full-size device swinging lopsidedly from one pocket all the time.
And what of the plethora of other tablets out there? Wiechmann said there are security concerns surrounding the most popular competing platform, Google’s Android, while the school is considering a pilot program to test Microsoft’s new Surface tablet.
As far as downsides to the iPad, Shah said that if you’re not familiar enough, there can be an awkward pause while trying to pull up a diagram or picture that could help a patient understand his or her condition.
“I think the iPad is just a significantly more convenient tool,” Shah said. “I can pull up all the same things on the computer. When I have the option … I’m seeing that I prefer to use the iPad.”
Both Carrillo and Shah also said the bigger iPad is just too large for hospital rounds.
“Having something that fits in your pocket is important,” said Carrillo.
After three years of medical school at UC Irvine, 25-year-old Kalpit Shah estimates he’s about $90,000 in debt and figures to be about $120,000 in the hole by the time he graduates. However, a school he was considering would have cost north of $60,000 each year for out-of-state tuition. And that’s not figuring in books.
At UCI, he’s purchased one book in three years – a $40 first aid pamphlet. Everything else is on the iPad.
“Financially speaking, I don’t have any regrets,” he said.
For UCI, costs of the iPad initiative have continued to increase as each new classes is outfitted with tablets, textbooks and notes covering their education. The program initially launched with $120,000 in scholarship fundraising, but is now funded through 2015 with a $1.2 million donation from John Tu, co-founder of Fountain Valley’s Kingston Technology Co. The funding covers the hardware and the digital textbook content.
Contact the writer: 949-229-2426 or ihamilton@ocregister.com @hmltn
