An Associated Press article on iPad use in medical education today examines some of the ways schools are training students to stay present with their future patients when using hand-held technology.
As outlined in the story, a Georgetown University program hires actors to play patients so that students can practice staying mindful, caring, and communicative while still taking advantage of the iPad's time-saving and information-enhancing features. And:
Across the country at Stanford University this summer, medical students will bring a school-issued iPad along as they begin their bedside training – amid cautions not to get so lost in all the on-screen information that they pay too little attention to the actual patient.
Face your patient, excuse yourself to check the screen and put away the gadget when you don't really need it, say Stanford guidelines that specialists say make sense for physicians everywhere. And, of course, no personal Internet use in front of a patient.
Previously: Can the use of devices among physicians lead to “distracted doctoring?”, School of Medicine students and staff host iPad show and tell, Is the iPad helping modernize medicine? and Stanford medical and Master of Medicine students will receive iPads
Photo by: p_a_h
