Medical software I couldn’t do without
After a discussion on the Twitter, I got thinking about core medical apps and hardware. We all need an email client and we all need a browser. But what applications are vital to my medical practice? Maybe I wouldn’t even use them if I wasn’t a doctor?
The list is suprisingly short:
- Papers
Papers is itunes for your scientific journal articles. It organises your PDF’s, associates them with Tags, and makes them searchable. You can create smart folders. You can read articles in full screen mode and take notes. I use this every day for both study and my research, and I have raved about it before.
- Scrivener
I use Scrivener as my general note-taking tool. I study with it and I write my PhD logbook in it. I can link between articles and to external sites and resources. Furthermore, if I want to export to Word for formatting or to print my thesis or a journal article, it is easy.
- Excel
Excel is my basic data management tool for my research. I keep tables of results for cut/paste to stats programs.
- My iPhone (hey, it’s my list!)
My phone has become a pivotal part of my workflow. I use the calender and camera to keep track of the few patients I see at the moment. Furthermore, as I am still in training, a mobile phone number and a PO box gives me a virtual office.
- Evernote
I have been clear about my love for Evernote. I use this for taking notes in lectures, and keeping reference material to sort through later. If I am on a public computer, I can drop bookmarks into Evernote to look at later. It saves me having to think about anything, and I am sure I will be able to sort through everything later.
- Audit
I am yet to find a good solution for my personal procedure audit, which is really important to me. My data is currently kept in a Word document, and in my paper filing cabinet, which is ridiculous. My college is about to launch an online audit solution for trainees, but I prefer to keep my own data as well, so I am going to look into database programs. I welcome suggestions on this point.
My other every-day apps, that also get used for medicine
- Mail.app for mail, with everything routed through gmail for spam control
- iCal for appointments, sync to phone via iTunes
- Twitter for medical networking (and time-wasting)
- Omnifocus keeps my GTD under control and tells me what I need to do.
- Omniplan keeps my PhD in order and reminds me when I am falling behind.
- iTunes (it’s all about the music)
- Quicksilver
- Together for tagging and sorting files without hurting them
- Marsedit for blogging
So now it is time to share. What are your core applications? What do you use everyday, and what could you never live without? Write a list and post it as a comment. If you have a blog, then post your greatest hits, and link-back here so we can share.
(This is open to anyone working in any field of medicine, and any operating system)
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Great list by the way. You are a true mac geek. Personalbrain http://www.thebrain.com/#-47 is a great way of recording thought processes and developing ideas. You could call it a modified mindmap, but it has the capacity to link concepts you might not have thought related and is beautiful to use. Thoughts can be categorised and linked to files and URLs. The free version is probably all you’ll need. Tweetdeck is a good twitter client which allows grouped tweets. You can tag files with quicksilver too. oh, and since you are into music, have last.fm scrobble your itunes playlists and let it recommend new music. I was initially unimpressed but am now an avid listener. Have found some great new music through it. Medical software I couldnt do without… After a discussion on the Twitter, I got thinking about core medical apps and hardware. We all need an email client and we all need a browser. But what applications are vital to my medical practice?… [...] Chris: Medical Software I Couldn’t Do Without Symtym: Core Mac Software, Hardware and Practices PF Anderson: My Top Ten Tools [...] Hey, thanks for the website, some great tips here! Re logbook: A number of the commercial patient management databases can be used for free without the billing component (I used one on the Newton a few years back, sadly no longer relevant). However they generally don’t have college categories, which the two above do. I just downloaded Papers and spent a few hours with it organising some articles for a literature review which may turn into a study at some point…..it is fantastic. Thanks for mentioning it.Comments
http://macgiver.wordpress.com/2006/09/28/quicksilver-tip-file-tagging/
I used Richard Brouwer’s surgical unit database as a logbook, then a HanDBase (on Palm) file. Richard’s was a little more fiddly to use, but more accurate. Have a look also at the Barwon Health (David Watters?) filemaker database, it is available from download from the College website. Leave a comment
Goodness. Can’t believe I forgot NetNewsWire. Shouldn’t spend so much time on it, but I do…