Customer Reviews

The New England Journal of Medicine

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As far as I can tell, the New England Journal (NEJM) is the first medical journal available for the kindle. There are several benefits to getting the NEJM on the kindle, and these benefits will likely lead all the major medical journals to follow suit at some point in the near future.

The benefits:
First, getting the kindle edition eliminates a ton of waste. Walk into any serious doctor's home or office (or even medical library), and you will likely find stacks and stacks of journals. Most copies sit there and collect dust...and only a few are used at any one point (what a waste of trees/paper and space). At some point, all the old journals have to be tied up and recycled (or bound up) (another waste of time and energy). The kindle version of the NEJM eliminates all this waste.

Second, it is easier to read the NEJM off the kindle screen than a computer screen.

Third, reading the NEJM off the kindle screen is almost as good as reading articles printed from the online journal...except, you eliminate the ink/tonor cost.

Fourth, the kindle saves the old editions on the device for you (creating a virtual library)

Fifth, the kindle will read the NEJM to you...by connecting into the speakers of your car stereo via a Coby cassette adapter. The kindle therefore allows doctors to transform commuting (driving) time into more CME time.

Sixth, doctors tend to be mobile and hard pressed for time--walking (running) throughout the hospital or from office to office. It would be a god send to have all the major journals available at one's fingertips on an easy to read platform. The kindle version of the NEJM is the first step toward this vision. To expand on this thought--having "Up to Date" or other medical info. review sites available on the kindle would greatly add to its appeal.

Disadvantage: Charts and graphs in the articles are difficult to read on the Kindle 2. When you zoom in on the charts and graphs by placing the cursor over them, they are much easier to read. If charts and graphs are very important to you, consider getting the Kindle DX, which reportedly makes charts and graphs much more readable.

I am a clinician whose primary area of practice is oncology. I am constantly looking for new and innovative ways to stay current with the medical literature. When I saw that the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) was available on the Kindle, I was ecstatic. The ability to have the NEJM delivered to me automatically, so I could peruse it at my leisure (and even have it read to me during my commute, as one previous reviewer pointed out) was very appealing. I own a Kindle v2, so my review is based on that platform.

Overall, the articles are easy to read, and suffer very little from being converted to Kindle format, with one notable exception: the graphics and tables come across horribly on the Kindle screen. Figures which show baseline demographics of comparator groups are unreadable, even when zoomed. Black and white photos may or may not come across well, depending on the size and quality of the photo. These may be solved with the Kindle DX, but for those of us who have already invested in Kindle hardware, I'm certain you will experience the same frustrations. Amazon, if you hope to continue to gain additional readership from the medical community, and gain additional medical journal offerings, I highly suggest that something be done to correct this flaw. With a normal magazine article, pictures are often a nice addition, but not absolutely necessary. With medical literature, the figures and photos often give a vast quantity of data that are not contained elsewhere in an article. In other words, if I can't see the figure clearly, I can't interpret whether the article I'm reading is a quality article, and what impact it should have on the way I practice. I plan to give my NEJM subscription a couple more weeks to see if graphic quality is consistently poor. If so, I will discontinue my Kindle subscription, as the NEJM is widely available electronically via other means.

Additionally, I mentioned that I was excited to have the Kindle read articles out loud while I was commuting to work. Unfortunately, due to the complex nature of medical terminology, the Kindle often butchers pronunciations, and stumbles over genetic information, abbreviations, etc. that are common in the medical literature. This makes articles read aloud via the Kindle almost incomprehensible. I much prefer to read articles the old fashioned way rather than have them read to me.
That being said, I do find that having the NEJM available on my Kindle has increased the number of articles from the Journal that I take a serious look at (as opposed to just glancing over). Also, I have started bringing my Kindle on rounds with me. It fits very nicely into my lab coat pocket, and makes a handy reference tool (not to mention the wow-factor from other clinicians when I pull it out).

Overall, 4 out of 5 stars for ease of use, portability, originality of concept, and wireless delivery. Fix the graphic issues, and I'd give it a 5/5 without hesitation.

On Kindle DX, most tables, figures and photos are fine, once the zoom function is used. Only the busiest tables/graphs are illegible. Fortunately, such tables/graphs are relatively infrequent and I enjoyed reading the latest NEJM on the Kindle DX, and most physicians have other ways to obtain these table/graphs if they need them. Yet, Amazon needs to find a way to overcome this problem if they are truly going to cater to the academic audience as they report that they are trying to do. Many textbooks have busy tables/graphs, and it may be difficult for faculty and students to get the hardcopy version of those tables.

One solution would be to have higher resolution versions of all Kindle purchases/subscriptions available on line to be accessed from a PC/MAC.

I cancelled my trial for the same reason I cancelled my print subscription a few years ago. I only did the trial to answer one of the earlier reviews questions regarding appearance on the DX. I am a pediatric endocrinologist, and most NEJM articles are too irrelevant to my field for me to regularly read the entire journal. For me, the NEJM free table of contents delivery to my e-mail that includes abstracts is sufficient for my purposes. Being in academic medicine, it is not difficult for me to obtain any full article on line when I need it. However, if I was in a more general specialty, or almost any internal medicine specialty, I would not have hesitated to subscribe to the Kindle version of the NEJM. I hope Amazon makes JCEM available.

One final comment. I do not understand why the Kindle versions of most newspapers, magazines and journals are as, or almost as expensive as the print versions. The baseline cost for the producers should be much less for electronic versions.

For electronic media to be fully effective, it should be able to replace the print version without sacrificing content. While NEJM is the best e-journal I've come across yet in medicine, it is still incomplete. Some of the articles did not include the photos or charts. Other times they were not readable. Other features, such as CME, should be available to the kindle subscribers. The journal should be priced cheap enough to encourage complete elimination of the print format.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Kindle edition of NEJM has been converted to AZW format instead of simply being a PDF file. The (highly desirable) consequence of this conversion is that articles retain the ability to add highlights and annotations, which would not be possible in PDF format.

As far as the reading experience goes, many tables and figures are quite readable although tables and figures that are busy may have text that is too small to read--even if you rotate the page to enlarge the text somewhat. The workaround for this would probably be for the graphics and tables to be enlarged prior to conversion, for greater readability. Or, of course, Amazon could add the ability to zoom in on graphics, figures and tables like can be done on the Sony Reader.

In reply to the poster who bemoaned the fact that this journal is not easily readable by the lay public: yes, that is entirely true. The NEJM is one of the most highly regarded medical journals available and it is geared not only to practicing physicians but also to presenting the latest research findings. As such, it would be unreasonable to expect that most lay people could pick up a copy of NEJM and read its articles with any significant level of comprehension.

That being said, it would be a good idea if the description indicated that this is a journal intended for medical practitioners and not for the majority of lay people. The other thing that probably should be noted is that this journal is intended for reading primarily on the Kindle DX. I haven't yet tried it on my Kindle 2, but I suspect that the reading experience on the K2 would be considerable less satisfactory. However, given the 14 day free trial period, nothing is lost by trying it for an issue or two.

Now, if we could only see other medical journals (Lancet, Annals of Internal Medicine, Transfusion, etc.) formatted specifically for the Kindle!

Addendum to above: it turns out that figure, tables, and illustrations ARE zoom-enabled, I just missed it the first time around (my bad). Hence, I would change my rating to 5 stars if only I were able to do so.

Have had the NEJM for several months now. Nice but the online subscription is half the price with many more features such as search back features, and printable pdf's. Amazon states that they will notify the company, but when I asked about getting online subscription with this service NEJM program manager said "NO." While I love the mag for my kindle, it is not cost effective nor have all of functionality of the online service. DO NOT RECOMMEND this product as there are much better buys. Either reduce the price or give online access with subscription.

I love being able to get this on the Kindle. I found the pictures and tables very hard to read, but then discovered that on my DX, I can magnify the image to full screen size (using the 5 way button). The journal expects a familiarity with medicine and clinical research, but if you do have that background, then I strongly recommend it.

Just a caveat for anyone thinking to subscribe - this is best for the "intended reader". If your are not one of them, you may not (and probably not) fully appreciate the beauty of reading it this way.

I really intend to give it a 4.5 stars but it won't allow me. I still have the older kindle version (ah, it was just not so long ago), and my only disappointment is the way the tables,charts, and graphs show in kindle but overall, it is a great way to read the NEJM. Hopefully, this will be the start of more medical journals being offered in this form.

Anyone who can give a personal view on how well the new kindle2 and kindleDX handles graphs, tables, and charts would be most appreciated.

Thanks.

I can get this e-edition on my 2nd generation kindle but not on my kindle fire, I was really looking forward to getting color graphics (or heck most of the time graphics of any sort) and having the convenience of carrying it around with me. Sadly I was to have no such luck. Now I scan the articles that are most important to me and keep them on the kindle fire for personal use, but it's an inferior solution. Let me have this on a better platform and I'll give you money NEJM!

Recently acquired a Kindle touch and have ordered a Kindle DX. Was really excited that NEJM was available. Subscribed to it but was disappointed that figures and tables/graphs are missing. I am guessing that NEJM is working on having those available sometime soon because articles will not be incomplete without them. Compare this to "The Economist" where the tables and graphs are included as well including some pictures as well. Admitted the tables can sometimes be hard to read, but at least they are there. But the graphs are mostly readable on the small tablet as well in "The Economist"

That said, as with everything else, NEJM is a pioneer, and the future of all journals is electronic. I am hoping to see an improved and complete electronic kindle version in the future. NEJM will have to spend time formatting the articles though because simply sending in pdf. or something like that will not work. Will unsubscribe for now though. But in the future, will definitely subscribe to it, and highly recommend it: If and once tables and graphs are available.