The other day I came across this entertaining video by the Laryngospasms, a talented group of CRNAs. I thought I could show one of their clips to my anesthetic colleagues as “staff lounge entertainment”.

Now while some software like Kinoma Player can stream Youtube movies, I think a better experience is to download the Youtube movie and play the clip offline. There are only a few steps involved and I’ll show you how I do it - all for free.

1) First of all you’ll need to grab a copy of the Flash movie file. There are a number of ways to do so, but if you use the Firefox browser, you can install the Flashgot extension. When you navigate to the Youtube video and start playing it, you’ll see in your browser’s status bar in the bottom right, a Flashgot save icon, and if you click on it, it will prompt you to save the Youtube clip.

Save the file e.g. to Wakingup.flv somewhere on your hard drive

2) Now Palm does not have a native .flv (flash video format) player so you’ll have to convert it to a playable format. The free converter I use is the Riva FLV Encoder

The thing you have to change is the file extension in order to tell Riva what movie format you want it to convert to. Change the name say from Wakingup.flv to Wakingup.avi in the Destination video file box. I usually also change the movie size to 320×240 (rather than the default 640×480) since we’ll be playing the clip on a tiny PDA screen. If it is a music video, you might also want to consider increasing the audio bit rate for better audio quality. Hit the encode button and in a few minutes, it’ll be converted to a clip in the .avi format.

3) Copy the Wakingup.avi file to your Palm’s SD card. You can now play this clip in a media player which can handle the file format. In my Treo or Centro, my media player of choice is the free TCPMP Player.

There you have it. Playing those Youtube movie clips offline in your Palm in 3 easy steps

from the Palmdoc Chronicles

Playing Youtube movies in your Palm

Jones & Bartlett’s 2009 Nurses Drug Handbook

Jones & Bartlett’s 2009 Nurses Drug Handbook is the most practical, most up-to-date, and easiest to use nursing drug reference!

The Washington Manual® Gastroenterology Subspecialty Consult

This handy quick resource is a current and easily accessible guide to the common problems that a gastroenterologist encounters on a daily basis.

Acute Medicine

An invaluable resource to the junior physician, casualty officer and final year student, explains what to do when faced with medical emergencies ‘on take’, on the ward or in the emergency department.

from the Palmdoc Chronicles

New in Skyscape

(Thanks to Mina Youssef for the info. Sorry I missed your comment but it was held up in the spam queue)

AAP and Unbound Launch Pediatric Care Online
Pediatric Care Online is designed around the daily clinical needs of pediatric offices. At the heart of Pediatric Care Online’s content are three of the AAP’s most relied-upon practice resources: the new AAP Textbook of Pediatric Care, which is the standard reference of its kind; content from the AAP’s Red Book®, which provides detailed information on more than 200 childhood infectious diseases; and Bright Futures, the organization’s comprehensive health supervision guidelines.
To preview the many features of the site and download a free trial of the mobile version, visit www.pediatriccareonline.org.

Back to the future
I mentioned Pediatrics on Hand in January 2007. Back then I said:

Whatever the future holds, I am getting the Treo680 as replacement for my Treo650 simply because it has more Ram and it runs PalmOS rather than Windows Mobile. I have a Dell Axim PDA and have played around with various WM smartphones like the Treo750v and the Dopod 838Pro. My impression is that PalmOS is still far more efficient as an operating system for handhelds and smartphones. 60% of my daily use involves PIM usage (calendar, contacts, tasks and memos) and this is the core of Palm efficiency. What PalmOS lacks is true multi-tasking and as for smartphones the ability to get connected with 3G and the glaring absence of Wifi capabilities (without 3rd party add-ons like the Enfora sled for the Treo). The future I believe is greater connectivity. The Telcos want you to buy their data plans and I don’t know how much this factors into Palm’s decision not to include Wifi capabilities but I can tell you some of my friends and colleagues have made decisions not to buy Treos simply because of this absent feature.
I think 2007 will be a crucial year for Palm. If they don’t adopt ALP (Cobalt is dead) then they had better come out with a successor to Garnet. If they stick with WM, then good luck to them as the competition is very stiff with so many WM hardware models to choose from. Palm should do what it knows best. Continue the PalmOS line. PDAs are not quite dead yet but you could still have improved Lifedrives (greater storage, built-in camera perhaps making it a true uber multimedia PDA), a TX2 perhaps. You may continue to tweak Garnet for the Treos yet. If you deliver the Wifi drivers that would appease legions of fans for 2007 (and make up for the lack of 3G).

What’s happened since:
- Palm has survived 2007
- I still have my Treo 680 which I am using everyday
- Still no sign of Wifi drivers for this device but I finally caved in and got that data plan: I have no regrets as I have truly mobile data connectivity now.
- Palm has not refreshed the Lifedrive line but gave birth to the still-born Foleo. Pity there was no Pediatrician on Hand to resuscitate it!
- Palm did not adopt ALP but are instead developing the Nova, the next-gen operating system. We shall see products only in 1H 2009 which is not that far off so Palm enthusiasts best be patient.
- Palm is still hedging it’s bets with WM and at least they are doing a reasonable job e.g. with the Treo Pro though I think their overall hardware designs could be more imaginative since many other WM handheld makers have made their Treo product line look rather jaded.

from the Palmdoc Chronicles

Pediatric updates

You can download the files from the Palmdoc Forums in this thread.

Coming up soon: more Flashcard databases and a Tutorial on how to easily get more flashcards for your Palm.

Here are some screenshots:

USLME Power Review

2007 first aid : ch 11 Hematology and Oncology

from the Palmdoc Chronicles

Flashcards for your PDA II

Medicine requires a fair bit of memorizing and repetitive prompting in the form of flashcards will help.
These cards come in handy when you are starting a new clinical rotation or studying any new subject. I used to carry them when I was a medical student - if only I had a Palm back in those days!

Here are some suggestions for the Palm platform:

Lexi 3.5 FlashCard for PalmOS

Lexi is a free flashcard program that helps you to study any topic, anywhere, at your pace. You may use it to memorize vocabulary, or to practice any other subject that can be written as a pair of question and answer on flashcards. The program stores your quiz results and uses them to re-ask you the questions you missed the answer and to compile the most difficult quizzes. This makes sure that learning with Lexi is as effective as possible.

The application comes with a free LexiCreator 1.4 for Windows.

New in Palmgear is also M-Cards 2.3 for PalmOS

MCards combines all the advantages of flash cards with the power and advantages of your PDA. There are statistics to control the progress. With PrismaCards on PC you have a comfortable tool to create very easy many flash cards (with import from Word, Excel, …).
Furthermore it offers the advantage to synchronize lessons on PDA with the PC. MCards makes free to learn wherever and whenever you want.

Windows mobile users may also want to check out these 2 freebies:
FlashCards v1.0
PocketLearn Viewer v1.0

So there you have it. Free flashcard applications for your PDA/Smartphone. Now go study.

P.S.
I have added these applications to the PDA Expert Guide for Medical Students.

If you have Flashcard databases for any of the above software which you would like to share with other users, head over to the Palmdoc Forums.

from the Palmdoc Chronicles

Flashcards for your PDA

I had to perform a quicker than expected update as I noticed there was an error in the HIT prediction module. This was the “missing” module which I had to rebuild from scratch as it was lost in the last backup I had. Anyway I think the error has been fixed.
I have also added two mode modules - Multiple Myeloma and DIC diagnostic criteria which I think would be useful for junior doctors and students.
You can download the latest version from the Haemoncrules Homepage

If you spot any errors, or have any suggestions for new modules, please let me know in this thread in the forums (free registration required in order to participate in the forums)

from the Palmdoc Chronicles

Haemoncrules updated - again!

PDA equipped doctors should take a cue from Cris’s post on 20 ways Surgeons could use Evernote
I think a pda phone equipped with a camera would be the best tool for performing all the tasks Cris has listed.
Perhaps we should come up with “100 ways a PDA toting physician could use Evernote” post?

from the Palmdoc Chronicles

More suggestions for using Evernote

For more details and the download link, please visit the Haemoncrules Homepage

As always, I welcome feedback including bug reports and suggestions for new modules. You can place a comment here or discuss further in the forums.

Screenshots:

from the Palmdoc Chronicles

Haemoncrules Updated!

Medcalc was the pioneer freeware medical calculator, and many would say still is the best. There is another alternative which is also free, and that is Archimedes from Skyscape. It is available for the Palm and Windows mobile platform. You can download the Palm version here
Skyscape has another product called Archimedes 360 which has more calculators and functions but costs $24.95

from the Palmdoc Chronicles

Archimedes - another free medical calculator

Available for Palm, Windows mobile and Blackberry.

from the Palmdoc Chronicles

USBMIS new release: Current Consult Cardiology