About Gadgets and Computers. And maybe even an iPad?

I am a "gadget head". That means that I am addicted to new technology. I hate to admit it, but I am one of those people camping out on the doorsteps of the Apple Store on the release day of the new iPad or iPhone. They call us "early adopters". There are less flattering terms.
I am not even that good with the real technology behind it. For starters, I hate to read manuals. So I really need all the help I can get from our IT staff. And they have been really patient with me.

I love to use computers - big and small - and they have become a big part of my daily life. My wife would say too much, I guess. She thinks one day my head is going to explode from all that exposure to those screens. The verdict is still out there regarding that. I sure hope that they don't cause sickness and diseases.

I remember our first computer around 1995. I had been introduced to the Internet at a friend's house in Chicago. I could not wait to get started myself. Anybody remember AOL? And those dial up modems that blocked the phone line for hours. All that still seemed just miraculous. The world seemed so small all of a sudden. I could read my beloved German newspapers again. Emails to my friends and family in Europe.
It did not take a long time until we needed "on the go" smaller devices for our pockets. First came the Palm Pilots, and then we got the first iPods and smart phones. And as far as I was concerned, the iPhone and IPad were the Holy Grail.

When I was a resident in the old days, our white lab coats were stuffed with little medical reference books about infectious diseases, drugs, emergency protocols and so forth. We felt like knights in full armor. Also we felt just as heavy. When we had to rush in case of an emergency sometimes all that content would spill out of our pockets and get splattered over the hospital corridors.
Medical students and interns all now carry an iPhone or a Blackberry loaded up with the newest and latest medical software. Multi drug resistant urinary tract infection? No problem, one second please, right at my fingertips.

Nowadays, I myself try to incorporate a lot of that technology into my daily practice. It is a learning process for all of us - doctors and patients alike. It is obviously important to use this as a tool, and to not let it be a distraction. Some do better with that than others. I'd feel bad if a patient said about an appointment that all I did was stare at my screen.
But it is indeed very satisfying to be able to use a computer in the exam room in order to answer a complicated medical question right then and there. Or to be able to explain an illness or upcoming surgery on a screen. A picture can say more than a thousands words.

It has also been a treat for me over the last 3 years to be able to use an "EMR" - an electronic medical record. Before that, it really had become a little embarrassing walking into an exam room with that thick paper chart that was just about to come apart, while computers were already such a big part of every other aspect of most patients daily life.
Now there is no more bad handwriting or illegible prescriptions - guilty as charged - or trying to find the last colonoscopy report, tetanus vaccine or cardiology consult. At least in theory. We've had some growing pains and are not quite there yet, but definitely heading into the right direction. I can see how much better and even more valuable this all is going to be in a few years.

But I am still not always happy - the "early adopter syndrome". Trying to push the envelope. Currently I am hopefully not driving our IT people crazy in order to use an Apple Macbook Air Laptop for our Windows based electronic medical record. It would be so much lighter - and cooler.
And I am still dreaming of using an iPad at work. How cool would that be?