Now a days, everybody has a mobile phone. Few have PDAs or Personal Digital Assistants. If you use them correctly you can simplify your life greatly, especially if you are a busy doctor.
I am a cardiologist, employed at Escorts Heart Institute & Research Centre, New Delhi, India, working 24/7 365days a year.
I would tell you how I use my PDA in my day to day practice. I have a Sony Clie UX50 Palmtop, which is a Palm OS based PDA. PDA can be of either Palm OS based ( More Popular) or Pocket PC based ( fast catching up, and controlled by Microsoft).
Majority of people use PDAs just as a PIM ( Personal Information Management) tool, keeping there contact's list and calender, and to do lists.
But if you see their capability then PDAs are grossly underutilised.
As a doctor, my first priority is my patients, therefore I keep a detailed record of my patients on the HanDbase software, in which I had personally designed a database for Cardiology patients. Now, whenever a old patient calls me I immediately have all the data on my screen, including the angiography report.
Then I have a drug database called ePocrates, which is free on the net, and has nearly all the drugs with there doses, side effects and drug interactions. This is a must have for all the doctors having PDA, as it has shown, that number os medical errors in drug doses have gone down after using it.
Then comes a number of medical books available in PDA format: Harrison's Manual of Medicine, Merck Manual, Washington Manual of Medicine etc. These are not free, but for a price can be downloaded on your PDA for a ready referrence.
Another killer app is Netter's Anantomy Flash Cards, which is a mini atlas of anatomy on the PDA. You would marvel at the graphic details of the anatomy, which most of us have forgotten by now.
In addition I keep animations of common cardiological procedures , like angiography, angioplasty in macromedia flash format, which explains the procedure to the patient very well.
So in nutshell, if you use your PDA well, it could be of great use in your professional life.