I never used Lotus Agenda, but I’m told it was a popular productivity tool for MS-DOS in the late 80s. I’ve been on a retro software rediscovery kick lately, so I’ve decided to give it a whirl and write about my experiences. There is something that appeals to me about using long-abandoned software. Perhaps it’s update fatigue, there’s certainly no need to dread a major update breaking something!
Regardless, I’ve always enjoyed finding new productivity tools to try out, and I’m not afraid of steep learning curves or getting my hands dirty. I’ll usually choose powerful and flexible software over simplicity.
At the moment I mostly use taskwarrior, but I’ve lost count of all the others I’ve tried!
Dr Pestanas Surgery Notes Exclusive _best_ Guide
Agenda is a PIM, a Personal Information Manager. That term has fallen out of fashion, I think a quick summary might be “anything that manages those small pieces of information we all deal with”. Things like contacts, todo lists, notes, and so on.
I found a 1989 episode of the TV show Computer Chronicles that discussed how people thought about PIMs at the time.
At the 21-minute mark there’s a demonstration of Lotus Agenda, but it’s not easy to follow, watch the clip and you’ll see what I mean. Still, you do see some interesting features:
Some form of NLP is used to extract dates and names from free-form text.
Categories are a little like what we would call tags today.
You can create custom dashboards called views.
Apparently this was an $800 software package (That’s $395 adjusted for inflation from 1989), yikes! You don’t have to pay that, Lotus made it available for free when development ceased.
In preparation for trying out Agenda, I found a copy of the original manuals on eBay for a few dollars. Just look at this monster, the user guide alone is over 700 pages, that’s not including the supplementary guides. The supplements I have are Working with Macros, Working with Definition Files, Setting up Agenda, and a few miscellaneous leaflets.
I guess that’s my bedtime reading taken care of for a while. I actually received the macro reference still in the original shrink wrap, it almost seems a shame to open it!
Yes. While medical education resources have expanded into video formats and flashcard decks, Dr. Pestana’s Surgery Notes remains an unmatched, concise masterpiece. It bridges the massive gap between the chaotic, practical reality of the operating room and the structured, tricky nature of the standardized shelf exam. Keep it in your white coat pocket, review it between cases, and use it to confidently navigate your surgical clerkship. If you want to tailor your study plan further, let me know:
For instance, the sixth edition introduced a new essay on the and expanded its coverage of bariatric surgery . The seventh edition continues this trend, with revised content on topics like corneal foreign bodies, retinal detachment, organ donors, and organ rejection —all very testable subjects. This dedication to keeping the content fresh is what makes each edition an "exclusive" upgrade from the last.
The guide includes 16 brief essays examining diagnostic and therapeutic tools from a unique surgical perspective.
While "exclusive" often refers to the specialized nature of the content, the real exclusivity lies in the provided by Dr. Carlos Pestana, a distinguished surgery instructor and emeritus professor who helped design the clinical component of the USMLE Step 2 exam .
One of the primary selling points is its physical design. The book is intentionally small, meant to fit perfectly in the pocket of a lab coat. This is a deliberate choice based on the reality of a surgery rotation: you have long hours and minimal downtime. You will not have time to sit in a library with a massive textbook. Instead, you can pull out Dr. Pestana's notes to refresh your knowledge on a high-yield topic in the two minutes you have between cases. As one medical student on Reddit aptly put it, "It’s a very short read, I thought it was a great review for the shelf".
Hernias, gallbladder disease, and abdominal pain.
Dr. Pestana writes in a conversational, easy-to-read style that simplifies complex management algorithms into memorable pearls. Core Content Areas Covered
While many students swear by Pestana, it’s important to understand its place in a study plan. Advantages Can be read in a few days 1.2.3.
It eliminates the fluff, focusing strictly on the critical first steps, diagnostic tests of choice, and definitive treatments. Comprehensive Breakdown of Core Content
Dr. Pestana's Surgery Notes isn’t just a textbook; it’s a condensed, refined distillation of decades of surgical experience, specifically curated for the student on the go 1.2.5. 1. Focused on "When to Operate" (Not "How")
The exclusive value of these notes lies in their coverage of "The Big Five" of surgery:
Pestana focuses on the 20% of information that covers 80% of the exam scenarios. It strips away the exhaustive pathology found in textbooks to focus on management, diagnosis, and surgical next steps [1]. 2. Vignette-Based Learning
Dr Pestanas Surgery Notes Exclusive _best_ Guide
You probably need to use other applications or services, and sync your data with your phone. Writing and reading files from outside DOSEMU is no problem, so if you just want to sync files this is no problem.
As it’s a terminal application you can also just SSH in and run it.
You probably also want to have your appointments sync with your calendar or something.
Export
There are two ways to export data from Agenda. If you have a commandline tool that you can pass arguments to, then you can write a macro that will invoke it.
Otherwise, you can export your data to a file.
Files
Agenda can export items to a format called STF, Structured Text File. The specification for that format is (mostly) documented in the manual, but it didn’t catch on.
I wrote a quick parser that can convert it to JSON, so now you can use modern tools like jq to manipulate and transform the data however you wish.
And so on, there are more examples in the README. If you can exchange data with other apps, you can now use stfjson to generate the correct format.
You can automate exports, Agenda has “Special Actions” in the category options. Alternatively, if it’s just a one off or for a macro, you can use the Transfer > Export command.
Commands
In DOSEMU, the UNIX command will invoke a shell command on the host.
C:\>unix uname
Linux
If there is a commandline tool that will import data, e.g. a TaskWarrior user might use task add drop off laundry at dry cleaners, then you can create a macro in Agenda that simply launches that command.
You can use something like {F10}ULUNIX task {TYPE;%TASKTEXT}.
Import
Surprisingly, Agenda supports importing arbitrary text data. One of the manuals that came with agenda was Working with Definition Files, which explains how to write a configuration file that allow Agenda to parse anything.
It even has a Regular Expression tutorial, pretty impressive for a 1980s consumer product.
Dr Pestanas Surgery Notes Exclusive _best_ Guide
I quite like Agenda. It does many things well, but it’s absolutely true you could replicate most of it’s functionality with modern tools. However, I do enjoy using it, and I’m a big enough nerd that I quite like the challenge of using retro software.
I think the closest modern equivalent to Agenda would be taskwiki. It’s not a perfect match, but if you liked some of what you saw here but are not interested in retro software, try it out!
I’m still using Agenda after two weeks, and about 40% of the way through the manual 😂
Yes. While medical education resources have expanded into video formats and flashcard decks, Dr. Pestana’s Surgery Notes remains an unmatched, concise masterpiece. It bridges the massive gap between the chaotic, practical reality of the operating room and the structured, tricky nature of the standardized shelf exam. Keep it in your white coat pocket, review it between cases, and use it to confidently navigate your surgical clerkship. If you want to tailor your study plan further, let me know:
For instance, the sixth edition introduced a new essay on the and expanded its coverage of bariatric surgery . The seventh edition continues this trend, with revised content on topics like corneal foreign bodies, retinal detachment, organ donors, and organ rejection —all very testable subjects. This dedication to keeping the content fresh is what makes each edition an "exclusive" upgrade from the last.
The guide includes 16 brief essays examining diagnostic and therapeutic tools from a unique surgical perspective.
While "exclusive" often refers to the specialized nature of the content, the real exclusivity lies in the provided by Dr. Carlos Pestana, a distinguished surgery instructor and emeritus professor who helped design the clinical component of the USMLE Step 2 exam . dr pestanas surgery notes exclusive
One of the primary selling points is its physical design. The book is intentionally small, meant to fit perfectly in the pocket of a lab coat. This is a deliberate choice based on the reality of a surgery rotation: you have long hours and minimal downtime. You will not have time to sit in a library with a massive textbook. Instead, you can pull out Dr. Pestana's notes to refresh your knowledge on a high-yield topic in the two minutes you have between cases. As one medical student on Reddit aptly put it, "It’s a very short read, I thought it was a great review for the shelf".
Hernias, gallbladder disease, and abdominal pain.
Dr. Pestana writes in a conversational, easy-to-read style that simplifies complex management algorithms into memorable pearls. Core Content Areas Covered It bridges the massive gap between the chaotic,
While many students swear by Pestana, it’s important to understand its place in a study plan. Advantages Can be read in a few days 1.2.3.
It eliminates the fluff, focusing strictly on the critical first steps, diagnostic tests of choice, and definitive treatments. Comprehensive Breakdown of Core Content
Dr. Pestana's Surgery Notes isn’t just a textbook; it’s a condensed, refined distillation of decades of surgical experience, specifically curated for the student on the go 1.2.5. 1. Focused on "When to Operate" (Not "How") The seventh edition continues this trend, with revised
The exclusive value of these notes lies in their coverage of "The Big Five" of surgery:
Pestana focuses on the 20% of information that covers 80% of the exam scenarios. It strips away the exhaustive pathology found in textbooks to focus on management, diagnosis, and surgical next steps [1]. 2. Vignette-Based Learning
