Archive for the ‘References & ebooks’ Category

Bright Futures (The AAP Guidelines) on the PDA

Thursday, March 6th, 2008

It’s a great idea to have such an important and credible handbook on our handhelds. Thanks to Unbound Medicine the mobilization of the latest 3rd edition of Bright Futures has become a reality, and this time exclusively by Unbound Medicine (No Skyscape, USBMIS, or Mobipocket format yet).

Print edition cover

The price is $69.95 and one might argue that the print edition is available for 10 Dollars less but to have it all in a PDA eliminating extra weights from the white coat and having an easily searchable digital format will let us really use this important reference in our daily practice.

Banner from Unbound Medicine

The book is the authority to which we should consult as fas as childrens’ well visits are concerned. Everything about children health supervsion and protection is there including anticipatory guidance, safety precuations, well-child visits, nutritional advice, developmental monitoring, and much more.

This time Unbound Medicine did not offer their usual package of web and wireless access and this is justified becuase the online version is already there free to use “check the Bright Futures website.

Here’s the Unbound Medicine download/purchase web page

and here is the AAP’s book store web page.

For Pda4peds links click on the following:

Review AAG page Video Demo

The Red Book on PDA, Which one to buy?

Saturday, February 23rd, 2008

Three versions of the Red Book available from different venders:

1) AAP Store

2) Skyscape  and

3) Unbound Medicine.

So which one should we go for?

The Red Book

The one available from AAP is in the Mobipocket format which is a very nice ebook reader and comfortable to navigate but the price is $109.95 for non members (99.95 if CD purchase!) and $94.95 for members! Check out this AAP page

Skyscape offers the same 2006 27th edition for $99.95 in the familiar Skyscape format which very user friendly but there are some difficulties with tables.

Unbound Medicine gives us exactly the same edition at exactly the same price but with additional web and wireless access!

Given what’s said, it seems that the best option is from Unbound Medicine, awaiting your comments!

The Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine; This time from Unbound Medicine

Wednesday, September 26th, 2007

This is where we’ve seen Unbound Medicine winning over the Skyscape! The new 7th edition is provided by Unbound Medicine and Skyscape alike. Being a point of comparison Unbound Medicine did not want to miss this chance to prove themselves and they did a wonderful job, They provided a PDA, a Web, and Wireless access to the ebook!

Oxford Handbook by Unbound Medicine

Click here to read Pda4peds Review

Click here to check Oxford Handbook Website

All versions come for one price (yearly subscription for the web and wireless) which is quite reasonable @ $45. Now with the wireless access even iphone users can look up the ebook (see image above).

We wish that Oxford University Press starts thinking seriuosly of developing Oxford Handbook of Paediatrics….

The “Pediatric Secrets” 4th edition is finally PDA compatible!

Saturday, September 15th, 2007

The famous Pediatric Secrets finally made it to our handhelds!

Cover Page

It has been a dream to have this best seller friendly and beloved pediatric book on our PDA screens. Thanks to Elsevier Student Consult service which allow us to send chunks and chapters to Pocket Consult where then it will be synchronized to the PDA, much like the way we read Nelson or any other Elsevier E edition (Read this post).

Unfortunatley, as it is the case with all Pocket Consult titles, there is no support for images and tables which this fourth edition is exceptionally full of. Let’s hope that they will resolve this isssue soon, and let’s hope that they allow us to download the whole ebook to our PDA and not only content clippings!

Secretly; I did download 5 chapters and when I tried to add the sixth I received a shortage of memory message; so for those of you with adequate sizable memory GO AHEAD and download the whole ebook and tell us here by commenting on this post!

(Read Pda4peds Review)

How to read the “Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics” on a handheld!

Saturday, August 25th, 2007

The question is invariably asked by pediatricians since they are all fond of reading this historically famous pediatric powerhouse “Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics” and they will definitely would like to have it in their PDAs.

Well, the answer lies in (PocketConsult), as Elsevier “the giant publisher” have made availble for us this service to manage our purchased Elsevier published ebooks.

The steps:

  1. Buy the print edition and make sure that you buy the version which mentions + online access code
  2. Go to the online version of the ebook in case of Neslon click here
  3. Register using the activation code provided with the book
  4. Then go to PocketConsult.com and register (free registeration)
  5. Install the adequate PDA version (Palm OS or Pocket PC) on your handheld
  6. Then back to the online version of the book and select the chapter you want to send to the PDA and click send
  7. Then synchronize the PDA via Activesync or Hotsync
  8. You will then be able to read that chapter using the Mobipocket Reader

Not only that but also we can download chapters from our registered books found in Student Consult (their other online portal), examples of pediatric books in Student Consult include: Neslon Essentials of Pediatrics, Pediatric Secrets, Illustrated Textbook of Paediatrics, and others.

Since Elsevier is acquring everything and is becoming a ubiquitous medical publisher we can expect that many more pediatric titles will be available either through the student consult or the pocket consult.

The problem is that they insist on letting us only download chapters from the ebook through what’s called “Cotent Clipper”, thereby we are only capable of getting small portions of Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics to our handheld (it works with Palm OS and Windows Mobile OS). We wish that if they can change their policy and give us the ability to read the entire ebook through some other solution, because this is a reference book and the most important function of a textbook is to search its index and get the detailed information on that specific (usually rare) topic. These books are available “completely” online, so why not on the handheld! Another big trouble with these people is that they do not allow e edition only purchase, you have to buy the printed edition in order to get access to the online and subsequently the PDA version.

To know more details about pokcet consult read this Pda4peds Review

Epocrates improved linking

Thursday, April 26th, 2007

The recent version of Epocrates Essentials included an improvement to the cross linking between their products.

Now we can link from Rx to Dx as we were able to link from Dx to Rx only in the previous versions. BUT still they need to improve the cross linking as for example many drugs and diseases mentioned in their Tables still unliked to Rx and Dx.

Watch a presentation on this issue.

emedicine what a great loss!

Friday, January 26th, 2007

The PDA version of emedicine (Read Pda4peds Review) was one of the most if not the most comprehensive and concise pediatric database available with thousands of disease monographs presented in a practical clinical point of view by more than 10,000 authors and eminent editors and pediatric sub specialists.

But unfortunately this great resource has been removed for individual subscribers the emedicine website owners have decided to make the content available only for institutions through their institutional edition imedicine