The only personal encounter I've had with PDAs in medicine was half a decade ago. My cousin, then studying to become an ophthalmologist, read his textbooks with a Palm Vx. He was only able to store one book, limited by the unit's 8MB internal memory. And the serial port meant uploading took forever.

Fast forward to today. Facilitated by the increasing capabilities of handhelds, apostles of Hippocrates have found lots of uses for them. There's at least one website selling premium-priced programs for doctors and hospitals, and many university med schools have pages listing down the "crucial" apps useful for prospective doctors.

I think the PDA is a perfect tool for doctors, people who need to manage lots of information and have it at hand. Plus, with the fees they charge today, they can afford the high-end models anyway (I joke! I joke!). Like anything else, the effectiveness of a PDA-doctor collaboration depends on the programs used.