Have you ever wished to have your medical books by your side for a quick glance of something you seem to have forgotten? Have you experienced some patient ask you a question about a medical condition which you are not well aware of? Have you been embarrassed because you were not updated with the latest medical news? Today, with the use of advanced technology all you need is an iPhone to be able to access any medical information, anywhere, anytime. Let us take a look at the top 6 iPhone medical apps useful in improving your medical knowledge and skills.
Medscape
Medscape has been developed by WebMD Health. Presently, it is the leading medical resource. It is one of the most used medical app by doctors, students, nurses and all health related professionals. It is an extensive store house of medical knowledge. It is a free app but a new member has to register himself (for free). A team of about 7,700 top doctors and pharmacists author and review the content so that it is verified and well-scripted to assist medical practitioners.
It contains descriptions of a vast number of diseases and conditions, detailed cases, clinical presentations, workup, treatments and preventive methods. These are written and reviewed by expert doctors, specialising in their field of practice. It also displays drug information like the most currently prescribed drugs, their age-specific dosage, interactions with other drugs, brand names, generic names etc. It also has a medical calculator with in-built formularies and scales.
It provides latest news and recent advances in the world of medicine, FDA announcements, important journal articles, and clinic practice guidelines along with CME (continuing medical education) courses.
Echocardiography Atlas
It is an app developed by Epocrates and edited by Scott D. Solomon, MD, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. Echocardiography, today is a basic diagnostic investigation for the heart. The correct interpretation of this is of utmost importance for further therapy planning.
Echocardiography Atlas App is an immensely useful tool for practitioners to increase their knowledge about cardiology and echocardiographs. It provides images and videos of normal and abnormal echocardiographs covering a broad spectrum of cardiac diseases. It has a function where one may zoom in the images and evaluate them. It is in the form of various chapters, each related to a cardiac condition e.g. Aortic Valve disease, cardiomyopathy, congenital diseases, endocarditis etc. The app benefits all medical professionals ranging from students, interns, to general physicians, cardiologists, surgeons etc. It has extensive data on various cardiac related ailments and the best part is, it is all available for free on the iPhone.
i-Radiology
This iPhone app is developed by Lieberman’s iRadiology, LLC. Dr. Gillian Lieberman is the Director of Harvard Medical Student Education and an Associate Director of the Residency Program at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. It is a free app and doesn’t require an internet connection. It contains classic cases of various abnormalities. One can search images on a particular topic or can look up undiagnosed images as per systems of the body and identify them for practice. Once you have analysed the image or scan, then you can check the prewritten answers with detailed explanation for each image. It is a must-have for students and practitioners to increase their plain film, CT, and MRI reading skills.. It is a very informative app which is known to be used by many medical institutions to teach radiology. Last but not the least, its free on the iPhone.
Neuromind
This app is labelled as the number one app for neurosurgery all over the world. It has been recommended as the most informative app by expert neurosurgeons. It was developed by Pieter Kubben, MD, PhD, a senior resident in neurosurgery in the Netherlands. Dr. Kubben is a senior resident in neurosurgery in the Netherlands. He first wrote and released Neuromind in 2009.
This app provides interactive clinical learning. It contains explanations for various conditions, their classification and grading. It also consists of pictures related to the anatomy of the human body. The vast information provided helps professionals and students to enhance their skills.
Visual Anatomy Lite
This multi-linguistic app is developed by Education mobile Inc. It is rated among the top apps for anatomical studies. It is an interactive anatomy app which is useful for students and practitioners alike as a reference tool and educational device. It consists of 3D rotating illustrations providing images from various angles. The images are high in resolution and can be zoomed in and out for close-up views. It consists of detailed descriptions of muscles with respect to their origin, insertion, nerve supply and action. It also has added images from Gray’s Anatomy. It has a quiz section where one can test their medical knowledge.
It is very useful for professionals not only in practice, but also handy when using it to explain to students or patients. An added advantage is that this app is free for access to all on the iPhone.
Smart Medical Reference
It is a multifaceted app. It provides complete details of about 375 tests which are used routinely. These are well grouped under different body systems with normal value ranges and test implications and explanation. It also contains drug monographs for drug references. It consists of medical calculators for conversion of lab values for e.g. from SI to US units and has clinical calculators for measuring BMI, BEE, EDD, Creatinine clearance. From within this app, one can connect to PubMed, Medline, DailyMed, Wikipedia etc. and get access to a huge collection of medical information via the Web. You can even email the article of choice after viewing or can save it to Evernote app.
Latin & Greek Prefixes, Suffixes and Root words are important parts of the medical vocabulary. The awareness of the meanings of these words, helps physicians & students to comprehend various medical terminologies. Along with this it also provides about 16,000 medical abbreviations.
Armed with these 6 iPhone apps, your phone replaces your textbooks, calculators, formula sheets, journal stacks, etc.
Contributed by Dr. Rachita Narsaria, MD
REFERENCES:
- http://www.medscape.com/public/mobileapp/features
- https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/echocardiography-atlas-by/id510397293?mt=8
- https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/iradiology/id346440355?mt=8
- https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/neuromind/id353386909?mt=8
- http://www.edumobapp.com/product.html
- http://medref.co/