E-books and the young doctor on the go

November 29th, 2007

Moderator’s note: Please welcome Dr. Karina Descartin as the newest contributor to the TeleBlog—see her bio at the end of this post. Check out her own blog, The story of healing. - DR

I’ve been reading e-books for years, almost as soon as PDAs came out, even if I haven’t always been wild about them.

No, I didn’t need the biggest, sharpest screen, just the right information in my textbooks when I was a medical student in the Philippines. I felt secure. In my pocket I could carry hundreds of thousands of words of medical advice—well beyond what I could hold in my head—and maybe use this wisdom someday to save a life.

E still key

Today e-books remain very much a part of my life as I prepare for my U.S. Medical Licensing Examination, needed to practice here in the United States. When I travel, I can’t tote a portable library of paper books. So instead I carry a MacBook, which contains seven medical review books, among others, and can play video lectures, too. My first-generation iPod Nano stores audio (MP3) lectures.

What’s more, e-books are part of my husband’s life, too—he’s a Web designer for the Wowio e-book service.

Beyond just exploring

No, I’m not the ultimate fan, just an explorer, but I’m excited by the possibilities of e-books as a way to squeeze more out of education budgets in developing countries while increasing the number of enthusiastic readers.

In fact, maybe reading TeleRead has already made me more than just an explorer. Today e-books are not a necessary evil for me; rather, just a necessity.

More on my reading material and hardware

Just what was I reading in my PDA days in the late 1990s and early 2000s? Well, I carried around two volumes of Harrison’s Principles of Medicine and two volumes of Schwartz’ Textbook of Surgery—plus a whole gamut of other books, which I read through the magic of the iSilo reader.

Back then, I was using the Compaq Ipaq 3760. Sweet! But eventually, we had to part ways; the Compaq was so thick, it kept ripping the seams off the pocket of my smocks, and the battery life was pathetic, an hour to an hour and a half at the most. But it served a purpose during that time, with 64Mb of RAM, a Flash memory slot, and the ability to work with a Targus Portable Keyboard. I’m nostalgic about the keyboard and the student days, but not the iPaq’s specs.

Back then: Was I reading a “real” book?

Frustratingly, there was a catch; I could not feel the joy of reading a “real” book. I imagined I was watching TV on a two-by three-inch screen, but I never finished a chapter on the e-books alone. I waited until I got home. E-books were just a way to fill in gaps of time when I had a chance to study on the go—not a full solution.

The medical e-books were CD-ROM versions that came with the paper textbook purchase. Then iSilo software converted them into smaller byte-sized versions. Very rarely, if any, did I download anything; by today’s standards my selection of books was limited.

At least the layout of the books was fine. The content was amazingly close to the paper version including the graphics. Just a few clicks gave me my information, and I didn’t have to injure my back carrying those two-inch volumes, which together added up. So I survived.

Hoping for free medical books

All those medical e-books cost me money, directly or indirectly.

But with Project Gutenberg, Archive.org, Web 2.0-related projects and such, free literature projects are mushrooming. Among the offerings are Darwin’s On Origin of the Species, Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions and even the dear late Carlos P. Romulo’s I Walked With Heroes.

What’s more, though the Public Library of Science, scientific and medical papers are becoming available at no cost. I hope that many many medical books will eventually be free.

The challenge

But can a traditional reader shift? Will a traditional reader shift? I’m definitely referring to myself, a reader with a habit of smelling and feeling a new book. At the personal level, my answer is yes. I guess there is no question now. I’m getting my reading done as I travel—minus the weight of paper books. I’m not complaining at all.

Do other people read more or less these days, and how much can e-books help? I’m very interested in finding out.

The future

As I continue to explore and learn more about Medicine 2.0, I understand the possibilities better than ever: broader knowledge, wider accessibility for medical students and professionals, and more exchange of vital information among peers than ever before.

Medical e-books predates the specific definition of Medicine 2.0, but now they’re among its most promising tools and in the future will be still more important.

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Karina is a physician, blogger, nascent filmmaker, traveler and generalist-geek born and educated in the Philippines, now living in Houston, Texas. She has participated in medical missions and organized volunteer healthcare activities in her home country, in areas ranging from remote mountain barrios to impoverished urban neighborhoods. These experiences have given her a first-hand look at extreme scarcity of books and the resulting negative impacts on people’s lives. In some areas, books are often treated like precious objects which children are rarely allowed to handle for fear of damage or loss. One of her long-term goals is to help reduce these barriers to reading and education by finding ways not just to provide free books and other reading materials to, but most especially means to encourage, people— especially children — who need them.

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