PDAs in Medical Education:
MARP (Mobile Access Resource
Project)
Annis Lee Adams, MA, MLIS
Virginia M. Tanji, MLS, MEdJoshua L. Jacobs, MD
Western MLA Chapters Annual Conference
October 17, 2006
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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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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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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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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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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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Intranet
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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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MD on Tap, cont’d
Most recent first Subject clustering MeSH & Publication Type
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MD on Tap Transaction Website
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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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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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I think a PDA will enhance my educational experience in med school?
62%
46%
73%
2% 0%
28% 23%
35%
24%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Pre Survey
MARP
Post Survey
MARP
NonMARP
Agree
Don't Know
Disagree
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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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Having a PDA has improved my ability to retrieve info for med school
39%
22%
39%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
Post Training Survey
Agree
Don't Know
Disagree
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Is the info from MD on Tap useful?
24%
28%
37%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
Post Training Survey
Agree
Don't Know
Disagree
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How often do you retrieve the full text from the MDoT transaction website?
2%
17%
43%
37%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
Post Training Survey
Often
Occasionally
Rarely
Never
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How often students searched MD on Tap over a 25 week period
7.8%
19.6%
60.7%
11.7%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
Rarely
Monthly
Twice Monthly
Weekly
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PDA features used at least weekly
74%
57%61%
70%
28%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Post Training Survey
Calendar
Address Book
Internet
Games
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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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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
