Presentation at the Western Medical Library Association Chapters Meeting 2006.

1. PDAs in Medical Education:
MARP (Mobile Access Resource
Project)
Annis Lee Adams, MA, MLIS
Virginia M. Tanji, MLS, MEd
Joshua L. Jacobs, MD
Western MLA Chapters Annual Conference
October 17, 2006

2. MARP-Mobile Access Resource Project
• 3-year project funded by an NLM Grant (just
entered Year 3)
• Provided PDAs with Internet access to first year
medical students (MARP students)
• Provided training to MARP students on PDA use
(basic & MD on Tap)
• NLM created MD on Tap transaction log website
for JABSOM to save PDA searches & citations
• Enabled the development of an Intranet for
students & faculty to communicate & share files
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3. The Setting
• Community-based medical school
• Problem-based learning curriculum
• 51 first-year med students participating
• Each received an Internet-capable PDA (Palm or
Pocket PC) and activated an Internet data plan
• PDAs were not required until 3rd year, but now
they are required in the 1st year
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4. Goals of the Grant
• To improve electronic communication and
information gathering of medical students.
– Provide Internet PDAs and training to MS
– Create a personalized Intranet for students & faculty
to communicate & collaborate on coursework
– Use AvantGo to allow MS to upload and download
data (course evaluations, patient encounters,
procedure logs, announcements) between PDAs and
Intranet
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5. Med Student Participation
• To get a PDA, students agreed to:
– Take pre-training and post-training surveys
– Attend PDA trainings
• To get reimbursed for monthly Internet
service plans, the students had to:
– Search MD on Tap (MDoT) at least once a
week to get reimbursed for that week
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6. Library’s Role
• Provide training on PDA use, including MD on
Tap
• Provide reference support for PDA use
• Create & administer pre-training & post-training
surveys on comfort-level, skill-level, &
satisfaction with PDAs generally and with med
applications
• Create & administer PubMed & MD on Tap
searching skills test
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7. Intranet
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8. MD on Tap
• Search Medline on a PDA
• Can display results by subject
or publication type instead of
most recent first
• Retains history of previous
searches
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9. MD on Tap, cont’d
Most recent first Subject clustering MeSH & Publication Type
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10. MD on Tap Transaction Website
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11. Evaluation Thus Far
• Pre-training survey - MS1s (MARP students)
and MS2s (non MARP) at start of school year
• Post-training survey – MARP students at end of
school year
• Compared MARP students Pre & Post surveys
• Compared MS2 Pre & MARP students Post
surveys
• Transaction logs track number of searches on
MDoT
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12. Evaluation Still to Come
• Administer a PubMed & MDoT literature
searching skills test to MARP students and
non MARP students
• Administer the Post-training Survey to
MARP students at end of this school year
• Continue monitoring # of MDoT searches
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13. I think a PDA will enhance my educational
experience in med school?
80% 73%
70% 62%
60%
50% 46%
Agree
40% 35% Don't Know
28%
30% 24% 23% Disagree
20%
10% 2% 0%
0%
Pre Survey Post Survey NonMARP
MARP MARP
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14. Comments from MARP Students
Post Survey
• Agree – I use the web feature to look up
definitions. . .
• Agree – It’s useful as a planner and to look
things up quickly
• Agree – Lots of good resources
• Disagree – Don’t use it except for its calendar
• Disagree – Access to resources is limited
• Disagree – good for schedule. . . Internet is too
slow and cumbersome to use.
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15. Having a PDA has improved my ability to
retrieve info for med school
45%
39% 39%
40%
35%
30%
Agree
25% 22%
Don't Know
20%
Disagree
15%
10%
5%
0%
Post Training Survey
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16. Is the info from MD on Tap useful?
40% 37%
35%
30% 28%
24%
25% Agree
20% Don't Know
15% Disagree
10%
5%
0%
Post Training Survey
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17. How often do you retrieve the full text from
the MDoT transaction website?
50%
45% 43%
40% 37%
35%
Often
30%
Occasionally
25%
17% Rarely
20%
15% Never
10%
5% 2%
0%
Post Training Survey
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18. How often students searched MD on Tap
over a 25 week period
70%
60.7%
60%
50%
Rarely
40% Monthly
30% Twice Monthly
19.6% Weekly
20%
11.7%
7.8%
10%
0%
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19. PDA features used at least weekly
80% 74%
70%
70% 61%
60% 57%
Calendar
50% Address Book
40% Email
28%
30% Internet
20% Games
10%
0%
Post Training Survey
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20. General Comments from Post Training Survey
• Internet service is too slow
• Treo phone model is really bad. . . phone freezes
• Info from MDoT is beyond what we need in the 1st
year. . . I want basic info not clinical trials
• Links to full articles do not always connect
• Besides MDoT, more useful programs should be
offered
• Thanks for paying for our PDA. . . I’d be better off with
a dictionary than MDoT
• MDoT hard to do searches and oftentimes doesn’t
give as relevant searches as with PubMed
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21. Preliminary Conclusions
• MDoT is marginally useful for 1st year med
students
– Textbooks and databases like UpToDate & eMedicine
generally answer their questions better than PubMed
or MDoT
• Anecdotal evidence suggests that students who
purchased med apps like Stedman’s were
happier with their PDAs than those who didn’t.
• Some students commented that PDAs would
probably be more useful during their clinical
clerkships years when they don’t have ready
access to a computer
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