In the real world he won't need any software to do his job, and I am not
sure how he would actually utilize software on the job. The only information
he will most likely need, depending on his job, will be the books that the
employer provides for their business.

Save your money.

CaptainKrunch

Unless he is wanting to go into research and get deeply involved in
statistics, Mathematica would be of absolutely no use (or at best it would
be EXTREME overkill).

Besides, as a student, software packages such as Mathematica, and
practically any other software package, can be bought in Academic versions
usually at very substantial savings through the school's bookstore or
sites such as creationengine.com.

If he is tech savvy, or especially if he could be described as a computer
geek, I would highly advise against buying him anything he hasn't
expressed a very specific interest in. Techies are usually highly
opinionated regarding what exactly they like, and 9 times out of 10, tech
gifts given to such a person won't be the model they would purchase for
themselves, or worse, may not work with the operating system they use, etc.

You didn't say how much you did want to spend.

Best gift I could think of is a PDA if he doesn't have one
already, but you're looking at probably $300-500 without software. Being a
computer geek myself, I was one of the few in my class who had one to
start off with. By the end of the 4 years, I think everyone in the class
had one. There are several pharmacy reference programs that are available
for PDA devices that are very handy (Lexi, epocrates, skyscape,
johns-hopkins, ABPk, etc) and sometimes these software packages can be had
for free or at a discount through the school.

If you could find out exactly what he would want along those lines, you
could purchase one for him, but heed the previous warning. Do you know if
he would want a Palm or, God forbid, a WinCE device? Do you know the exact
model he would like to have? Do not go with the cheapest on the shelf.
Pharmacy reference programs take up significant amounts of memory, and a
very low-end model can be nearly useless if he wants to use more than
1 or 2 of the available databases. If you have any doubt as to which one
he would like, do him and you a favor, and go either with a gift
certificate or cash. While some may mistakenly consider either of these a
boring and/or less thoughtful gift, it beats the heck out of a
well-meaning gift that needs to be returned/exchanged.

If you want to make it more personal and live in the same area, take
him to the store to pick one out.

If he already has a PDA, or you want to spend less than
the $300 or so needed for a decent PDA, consider a gift certificate at the
bookstore. It could be used to help purchase the required, and expensive,
texts, or his choice of software at student discounts.

Just my 0.02

Hello,

An excellent piece of software is Clinical Pharmacology.  It's a good
reference source and even generates quizzes for the extremely motivated.  I
share the skepticism about going the PDA route now.  The on-line version is
pretty inexpensive relative to other programs (ie. Micromedex subscriptions)
but it's very thorough and updated frequently.  You can preview the product
at:

http://cp.gsm.com/

Best wishes!

Richard Molitor, R.Ph.
http://www.angelfire.com/wa/pharmacist

P.S.   there are other on-line references available via links from my web
site.

Oh that's ridicules...

Get him a copy of SUSE Linux and break him of his expensive proprietary
solftware addiction.

He'll thank you later

Ruben