New Students at Drexel Med School Given iPads as Training Tool
By Pat Loeb
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Incoming students at Drexel University's college of medicine got more than their new curriculum at the first day of orientation today.
The curriculum came pre-loaded onto a brand-new iPad, along with some custom-made apps to help them learn.
Each of the 263 first-year medical students was handed one of the sleek Apple devices -- a step, says associate dean for information technology Arnold Smolen, toward helping future doctors stay on the cutting edge.
"We know that the future of technology is going to be more portable, more ubiquitous, so that's why we thought it was important for our students to get that early on," he tells KYW Newsradio.
Drexel says the iPads will save 7,800 pages of handouts per student. Student Parsa Salehi welcomes the efficiency.
"Back in old textbooks you'd have to Post-it everything and highlight, and you might forget where the page is," he says. "Now you can tap a page, so it will really make everything more efficient. You won't lose stuff, you'll have all your papers together."
Of course, he can think of other uses for the iPad, too:
"Play games, browse the Internet, go on Facebook, social media. It just does everything."
