I love my Kindle!

I always wanted some "electronic paper" device that I could take notes on and hold all of the files I wanted at my fingertips ...

My parents gave me the Kindle DX as a birthday gift!  It has "whispernet" dedicated wireless for simple bookdownloading/wikipedia browsing (battery life 2 days) and a solid read time of 2 weeks with the internet disabled.  Since it doesn't have a backlight and it only draws power when the pages turn, it's a great device for travel.

It feels almost blasphemous to admit how I am fond of my iPhone, especially now that the iPad has come out as the sexy attractive alternative to this eReader.  Amazon will hopefully step up its game and work harder with the Kindle.  In any case, I think that the Kindle was/IS still a good buy.

For my MD preparations, I bought a series of clinical books:

• DeGowin's Diagnostic Exam
• Good reference, a bit thorough but a fun read nonetheless with great quotables!
  
• The Rational Clinical Examination by JAMA
• Great analysis for an evidence-based H&P!
  
• ECG Diagnosis Made Easy
• Image quality can be an issue on a grayscale e-Ink pad.  Keep that in mind when purchasing eBooks.
  
• First Aid for the Family Medicine Boards
• Hopefully this will pay off in spades over the next 3-4 years during my residency!

Then, I uploaded the AFP pdf series on assorted Family Medicine topics (we received a CD with copies of some important articles published in the past 10 years in our third year rotation.)

Additionally, I have been tossing in pdfs along the way, for ICU topics mainly.

There are tons of free e-books to read as well.  I've read half of the Sherlock Holmes books and I'm attempting to read the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and Physics for Entertainment now.

I put it in a clipboard I bought at Office Depot -- one of those storage clipboard cases -- for protection from damage/theft.  I am working on making a USB drive with the PortableApps to create my perfect portable experience now, to use while rounding in the hospital.

I do enjoy the multiple formats that I can use to read my Kindle books -- it is nice to curl up in bed with my Kindle app on the iPhone when I don't want to read with the lights on.

 

The only thing I dislike about the Kindle is the bookmarking -- there's no way to label the bookmarks so it is a lot of page number memorization!  Very frustrating when you're trying to navigate to something specific as a quick reference.

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Picture by ivyfield via flickr