Iowa Eye Association News Sept, 2001. Series 2, no. 36.

University of Iowa Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences

NOTE: This page is for archival purposes only and may contain information that is outdated.

All In An Iowa Resident's Palm

Insights about Palm Computing from Scott Larson, MD, third year resident

In 2000, Dr. Tom Weingeist discovered seemingly endless uses for the "Palm Pilot" handheld computer. He realized that he could not only make himself more efficient but could help the other faculty and residents to become more organized if he made it possible for each one of them to obtain one. Each resident was given a TRG pro, a palm computer based on the Palm operating system. The residents were rapidly brought into the information age. Several of them found ways to organize their clinical duties and some even developed original edocuments for use by themselves and other residents.

One of the first things used by the residents was a departmental phone list, making it much more convenient for residents to find and consult with faculty. Each resident was "beamed" a copy of the departmental address list and had all the faculty's home phone numbers, addresses and spouses names.

Some residents have developed a database program to keep track of on-call patients. Others made customized databases to keep track of their surgical logs. Soon a standardized surgical log will be available that will allow each resident to track their surgeries and outcomes and share that data with a national data pool for study and comparative purposes.

Puwat Charukamnoetkanok, one of the third year residents, developed an "On-Call Survival Guide" containing policies and procedures, ward guides, phone lists and algorithms for common eye emergencies. He published this as a pocket-sized paper book, then as a web document and finally as a Palm document that is available to and used by all of the residents.

Scott Larson, another of the third year residents, with the help of his classmates David Petersen and Rahul Pandit, put together an ever growing "e-book" called the "Iowa Eye Notes". The document is nearly 700 pages organized like a web site and contains information from all the sub-specialties in ophthalmology from Cornea/ External Disease to Uveitis. Many sections are based on teaching from the faculty in the department and represent valuable and up-to-date information for the residents. For example, Dr. Bill Scott's strabismus notes have been compressed into an easy to navigate e-document and represents the strabismus section of the "Iowa Eye Notes".

Other third party applications that have become essential for the residents include the self-updating drug database Epocrates® that contains dosing, drug interactions, adverse effects, and cost of thousands of drugs. Web clipping programs such as AvantGo® or iSilo® are used to download entire journals such as Ophthalmolgy or American Journal of Ophthalmology for browsing on the Palm.

The Iowa residents have become quite a bit more computer savvy since their introduction to the handheld computer. They are finding new and innovative ways to use them almost daily. Now they just have to program them to run the lasers and phaco machines.