Everything in the new generation has upgraded, and that includes medical learning and gadgets. Before, the epitome of a medical student is one equipped with hardbound 1000-paged textbook and a stethoscope.

This generation, the medical student can’t live without:

1. Palm/PDA/Smartphones. This are used to store e-books and other useful software. This gadget comes in handy. Goodbye to hardbound textbooks!

2. Laptops and notebooks. Medical students also bade goodbye to acetate pens and films used in clinical presentations and said “hello!” to laptop computers. Every presentation now are made in MS PowerPoint. Latest laptop models are built-in with wifi connectivity so medical education and references (including researches and journals) also has became more accessible to all using the internet.

3. Mobile Phones. The latest phone releases now integrates the capability of storing e-books and audio books, instructional videos, medical software, patient data, etc. It’s laptop and PDA combined. Mobile phones come in handy also in times of dosage calculation with the use of built-in calculators. The latter is not a very emphasized helpful feature but it is during Pediatrics clinical rounds where accurate dosage calculation is a must.

4. A Digital Camera, preferably with small size which makes it perfect to carry in a pocket and produces sharp images with enough resolution (4 megapixels) to create large-size prints and optical zoom. Digital cameras are useful in documenting microscopic slides.

5. A USB flash disks, preferably with at least 1GB capacity. This can be used to save medical lectures.

There are also new gadgets that were introduced which might be of great help to medical students. This are not must-haves but they’re definitely of good use.

The stethoscope has pretty much became the common “gadget” of medical students. And even that is seeking a new look.

The Stethoscope Reflex Hammer is a simple device that snaps around the chest piece of a stethoscope to create a reflex hammer. The intended users are doctors or medical students performing general exam on patients.

You can add your suggestion and give your top 5 must-have gadgets for medical students below.