I'm not in nursing school but i am in medical school so I guess it's similar enough for me to throw in some thoughts
I actually bought an iPad 2 for med school use. We cover so much material that whenever I print my powerpoints, handouts, etc that I have quite a sizable pile of papers. It's a pain to carry all my notes and such around and I thought by using the iPad, I can have digital copies of everything and not have to worry about carrying around hundreds of sheets of paper with me to study.
Unfortunately, after using the iPad for some time, I found that it wasn't quite as useful as I had envisioned it. Here's why:
1. Note-taking is difficult.
First, don't even think about using the onscreen keyboard; it's inefficient and hard to use. Yes, you can buy a keyboard...but what makes that different from a laptop then?
I also tried the handwriting route. I used the iAnnotate app to convert my lecture's PowerPoints into PDF and then transferred it to iPad (a bit of a pain...on a laptop, i can just download and begin work). To write, it's more efficient to use a stylus (not a finger). I tried a bunch, ranging from cheap styluses to a $50 stylus... but they all did not give me the accuracy and detail that I needed and wanted for notetaking.
So back to printing and pen and paper for me.
2. Printing
My school has printing services available...provided you use a laptop. If i need to print something at school, I need to have my computer with me, not an iPad.
3. My school also records lectures and has them available for download so we can go over the lecture at a later time. As far as i know, there's no app that allowed me to speed up the video speed (as opposed to Quicktime or even Windows Media Player).
4. Multitasking.
It's just more efficient to multitask on a laptop than an iPad. I can watch my lecture video while typing away notes on my laptop. Can't do that on an iPad.
5. Clinical Use
I haven't used my iPad clinically. Putting aside HIPAA and patient privacy... I could possibly see some uses but I think in general, it'd be more of a pain to carry around. An iPad is big and I'm sure a nurse will have many things on her hands to take care off; I don't think it's wise to continually keep setting down your iPad in various places to take care of your work. A smartphone on the other hand, will do most of what an iPad can do clinically, and can go straight into you pockets.
6. Textbooks
To be fair, I'll say I do prefer my iPad for reading PDFs and medical papers. However, when it comes to textbooks, I like having a physical copy. I tried some eBooks but found it's easier to highlight and/or write notes down in the margins. Plus many books I use don't have an easily available eBook. Yes, there are some on the more shadier parts of the Internet...but they tend to be old editions too. For medicine, where things like biological mechanisms or drug lists continually change, having the most up-to-date book is generally more useful.
And digitizing a textbook? I don't think nursing students will have the time for that. And if you ever decide to sell textbooks... well you cant do that with an eBook.
So just from my experiences, I'd say it's a good thought but it's still not a very useful tool yet. You're better off getting a laptop. Speaking of which, some programs require their students to buy and use laptops provided from the school... might want to check as that would marginalize the iPad's usefulness to your wife even more.
Just my two cents.