Summary notes for a fall 2013 talk on information management to the incoming Dalhousie Medical School class. Some of the information is specific to Dalhousie, however, the majority of ideas are more generally applicable.
Information Management and Digital Communication
Efficiency in Medical School
• Main
Information Sources:
·
DalMedix—repository of longer term information
such as departmental & classmate contact info, numerical marks,
immunization record.
o
Copy
& paste classmate contact into Excel, then save as a comma-separated-value
(.CSV) file and import into your address book and on-line contacts.
·
One45—medium term information including
schedule, forms for electives, and qualitative written evaluations. Note that
the schedule changes up to the week prior, so best not to export too far in
advance.
o
Export weekly
schedule & import to iCloud or Google calendar. On Mac’s drag and drop the
schedule into Calendar to import it. On an iPad, choosing to “export” the calendar
should automatically open the Calendar
app and import it.
·
BBlearn—daily information including lecture
slides and video of recorded lectures.
o
Save the
PDF to your computer or “open in” an iPad PDF management app. I recommend
“goodreader” on the iPad, Preview or Acrobat on the Mac, and Acrobat or
NitroPDF on PC for annotating the PDF lecture slides. I would suggest NOT
renaming the lectures.
·
Class Facebook Page—provides an easy, regular
way of sharing information and relevant material.
o
…Need a
method of efficiently saving linked information for later retrieval, as it can
be hard to find under more recent posts. Evernote works well for clipping the
URLs, saving HTML or PDF files, and pasting in images.
·
Information Markup
o
PDF annotation programs & apps:
§
NitroPDF-- Windows
§
Acrobat-- Mac/Windows
§
Preview—Mac
§
Goodreader—iDevices (there are a number of apps
that will allow you to store, markup, and upload PDFs on an iPad, however,
Goodreader does all of this well, includes zoom capabilities for hand writing on
the tablet, works well as a document manger, and costs $5.
o
Moving clipping visual data—can be very useful
to capture charts, flow diagrams and images from PDF texts or websites.
§
command-control-shift-4
on a mac, “Print Screen (prtSc) or the snipping tool in Windows will capture an
image (.png) file to the clipboard that you can then paste into a MS word
tutorial case file, and Evernote note, or elsewhere. Some programs, such as
NitroPDF and Skitch have this feature integrated.
·
Information Storage
**Keep in mind that any
information stored in the “cloud” is potentially unsecured. With the possible
exception of certain institutionally accepted services it is not an appropriate
storage method for ANY personally identifiable patient information or sensitive
personal information. It is a very convenient
and efficient storage method for non-sensitive general medical information that
will compose the majority of the initial medical school studies.**
o
Cloud
Drives (Dalhousie’s new MS SkyDrive access may offer more data security
than commercially available systems)à Multi-device and
location availability of static content (texts, papers, etc.). Allows access to
your data from any computer / internet connection.
o
Evernote-->
Multi-device and location storage and search of dynamic content, including
multiple file formats grouped together according to subject matter, powerful
integrated search of image files, PDFs and office documents.
o
Reference
manager (Papers2)--> storage, retrieval & sharing of PDF copies of
references. Can match a downloaded PDF paper to the data available on the web
about that paper and then automatically generate a reference lists for research
paper bibliographies.
·
Backups
§
Synced cloud storage is not a backup. If it's gone
in one location, it syncs to be gone in all of them. Buy an external hard-drive
and use it.
·
Communications
Dalhousie recommends not forwarding your Dal email to
another account. Certain situations may prefer that students use un-forwarded
Dal email for privacy reasons (e.g. Health Mentors). I find forwarding my
various email accounts to one main account and then organizing the incoming
emails to various folders accessible via IMAP clients and online to be more
efficient.
§
Forward
all mail accounts to Gmail.
§
Create
labels for the various categories of emails that you receive.
§
Create
filters to route incoming mail to the appropriate label.
§
Set up
IMAP clients to be able to send from any of your various emails accounts. (i.e.
input the dal server information so that you can send emails from any account
you wish via the email client on your Mac, PC, iPad, tablet or phone).
§
Studying
Some find studying from the Unit Objectives helpful, some
don’t refer to them at all and simply study what the lecture slides emphasize.
Both approaches seem to work. Spaced repetition programs such as Anki work for some. Keeping a list of the actual conditions or diseases
encountered in a unit can be a useful way of summarizing and maintaining focus.
Potentially Useful
Purchases
GoodReader—PDF
annotator & file manager for iPad, $5.
Acrobat—PDF
manipulator for Mac & PC (cheaper options available for PC, for Mac,
Preview does most, but not all of what Acrobat does), $120 student rate.
Extra cloud
storage—if needed, $30 & up / yr.
Evernote Premium—highly
recommended storage&sync option, Premium allows more uploads and improves
the search capability, $45/yr.
Scanner Pro
(or any scanner app that offers good integration with cloud storage)—allows you
to photograph a document with your phone, create a PDF, and upload it to the
cloud or email it.
Papers2—Mac
reference manager for research materials, can sync with iPad / iPhone, match
downloaded papers with on-line source data, generate references for research
papers, allows easy search, retrieval, and sharing; ~$50 student rate.
Visible Body—Anatomy
app for iPad which allows 3-dimensional viewing., ~$35
Harrison’s
Internal Med—iPad/iPhone/online version of the text. Useful, but
expensive. More convenient and portable than paper copy; $200.
Up-to-Date—Very
useful online medical reference database; ~$180/yr with iPad/iPhone apps.
Texts—most
can be downloaded in PDF format if you know where to look. Personally, I find
PDF copies more useful and portable than paper copies, and easier for multi-platform
access than the various e-Pub formats, or HTML restricted access via the
university. Consider purchasing the Toronto
Notes (~$150) an anatomy text & Tortora
Derrikson’s “Principles of Anatomy & Physiology” as a good basic
reference.
My WorkFlow
Lecture: Open PDF in safari on iPad via BBlearn portalà “open in” Goodreaderà annotateà upload to GoogleDrive
folder for that unit (for backup copy), and “open in” Evernote (which creates a
new note)à
assign new note to the appropriate notebook for the unit. à Ensure Evernote syncs
correctly to server (can hang with larger lectures, if so, the Google drive
copy allows to you place it in evernote from your home computer, or via web
portal)à
If the file has uploaded to both google drive and Evernote, delete the file
from Goodreader.
Open in Evernote on home or school computer or iPad for
later studying / review.
Tutorial: Download case in MS Word format to computerà Save it in a new note
in evernoteà
Clip links, PDFs, and images referred to in the “case reference materials” into
the same noteà
Write answers to the case questions in the original word document, copy and
paste text or screenshot images (⌘-control-shift-4 to save to clipboard on Mac,
snipping tool on PC) into the word document or the evernote noteà Access
during tutorial via evernote on iPad.
