Stedman's Plus Spellchecker 4.0

Every health care professional knows the frustration evoked when a word processor's spell-checker flags every other word in document full of medical jargon. Stedman's Plus is a competent solution. It is a spell-checker supplement that contains over 343,000 medical terms as well as 20,000 generic and brand drug names from the Physician's Desk Reference (PDR) Generics. Stedman's is designed to work with specific word processors. Supported word processors for MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 include Microsoft Word 2.0/6.0/7.0, Word Perfect 5.1/6.1, Lotus Ami Pro 3.1 and Lotus Word Pro 96. Although there is no explicit information on compatibility for Microsoft Word 97 under Windows 95, I had no difficulties installing or running Stedman's under such a configuration. Support for Microsoft Word for Mac 5.1/6.01 is available for Macintosh users.: The version of the program under review came on two 3.5 inch floppy diskettes, although it is now available on CD-ROM. Installation was effortless and straight-forward, although an uninstall feature was not available in case you later decide to remove Stedman's from your computer. System requirements are minimal (approximately 2 to 3 megabytes of hard disk space). Technical support, in the unlikely event that you need it, is available by toll-free telephone number, fax and e-mail. Upgrades for users of previous versions are reportably available from the publisher at a discount. Stedman's works invisibly: you simply simply activate your word processor's spell checker in the usual fashion. Performance was excellent with most medical words. On occasion, I found less commonly used medical terms missing from its dictionary, such as "reinfarction" or "cardioembolic." For the most part, eponyms like "Libman-Sacks," "Hermansky-Pudlak" and "Wolff-Parkinson-White" were found, but "Reiter's syndrome" was not. Stedman's also flags abbreviations that it believes should have been capitalized. For example: "sle" becomes "SLE" and "cbc" becomes "CBC." Plural abbreviations such as "LFTs" were flagged and the appropriate singular forms suggested. Most branded drug names were accepted if they began with a capital letter. More recent agents such as "Indinavir" and "Ritonavir" were evidently too new for this version. The spell checker did however recognize "AZT," "zidovudine," "protease-inhibitor" and "CD4." In summary, Stedman's Plus is a user-friendly spellchecker that is quite capable for the everyday needs of medical professionals. It will save you much grief the next time need to check the spelling of "Kimmelstiel-Wilson glomerulosclerosis."