There’s An App For That: Key Smart Phone Applications for Surviving Residency
UCSF Graduate Medical Education Grand Rounds
Jan 18, 2011
Michelle Lin, MD
UCSF Associate Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine
San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center
Michelle.Lin@emergency.ucsf.edu
What are apps?
- Computer applications designed for mobile phones
- Many apps are for communication, entertainment, or multimedia functions (Twitter, Facebook, Pandora, games)
Why are we talking about apps in Medicine?
- There is NO future in printed textbooks and references.
- Apps are the future in the medical education and clinical decision tools.
- Medical apps are most commonly found on the Apple iOS platform (iPhone, iPod Touch) >> Android > Blackberry
Top 12 medical apps
This handout link is: tiny.cc/s8ow8
App | Platform | Cost | Use |
1. Evernote | iOS, Android | Free | All-in-one organizational, cloud-based software which automatically keeps your desktop, online account, and smartphone documents all synchronized and accessible anywhere. Great search feature which can even search within pdf text. Can organize journal articles (pdf), text (eg. to-do lists), important documents (photo of passport and visa for travel). |
2. Epocrates/ Micromedex | iOS, Android | Free | Drug prescribing app. Epocrates: Has a great Pill ID feature. Includes cost of medications. Micromedex: A slightly more user-friendly layout. Has toxicology information for each medication (in case of overdose). |
3. MedScape | iOS, Android | Free | From WebMD. One-stop resource for drug doses, fact sheets on diseases, and recent news items in Medicine. |
4. MedCalc/ Mediquations | iOS / iOS, Android | Free / $4.99 | Both are useful calculator tools, with slightly different layouts. Mediquations actually tracks the most recent calculation tools that you used. |
5. Camera | iOS, Android | Free | Great for emailing images and ECGs to consults (especially for those on home-call). Can take photos of lacerations so that patients can see them (eg. scalp). Can take photo of patient’s facial droop to ask him/her if it’s new or old. Beware of HIPAA-compliance. |
6. Pedi Safe/ Pedi Stat | iOS, Android | $0.99 / $2.99 | Pediatric reference for weight-based drug dosing and equipment sizing. Pedi Safe: Normal vital signs by age, requires that you estimate the patient’s weight (no age-based weight estimation). Pedi Stat: The user interface is a little more user-friendly. Allows you to estimate weight based on length or age. |
7. Eye Handbook, Eye Chart | iOS | Free (both) | Quick visual acuity check, 3D ocular anatomy, cartoons to distract pediatric patients, examples of abnormal vision symptoms |
8. NEJM This Week | iOS | Free | Features free articles from the current week’s New England Journal of Medicine journal. Also has select photos from the Images in Clinical Medicine series, weekly podcasts, and select videos. |
9. iRadiology, Radiology 2.0 | iOS (both) | Free (both) | iRadiology has images divided into categories. Each case allows you to turn on labels, which point to the abnormal areas, and flip to a discussion page. Radiology 2.0 has 65 cases which allow you to pan through an entire CT by moving your finger up and down on the screen. |
10. Diagnosaurus (also known as “Dxsaurus”) | iOS, Android | $0.99 | A symptom-based and organ-based database to help you develop a complete differential diagnosis |
11. Ruler | iOS | Free | A simple yet effective ruler which measures in inches and centimeters. The main limitation is that anything longer than 7 cm requires you to march the ruler along what you are measuring. |
12. Whiteboard Lite | iOS, Android | Free | Simple doodle pad to draw images for patients (instead of on scrap paper or the gurney bedsheet). |
Honorable mentions:
App | Platform(s) | Cost | Use |
Dropbox | iOS, Android | Free | Allows you to cloud-sync your large files on your desktop with your smartphone. Free 2GB of space. Can share your Dropbox folders with others. |
Stroke Track | iOS | Free | Helps you rapidly calculate a patient’s NIHSS stroke score and risk/outcome with thrombolytics. |
Metronome | iOS, Android | Free | Helps you maintain proper CPR chest compression rate of 100 bpm |
Dragon Medical Dictation | iOS | Free | Surprisingly accurate voice recognition of medical terms. Searches for diseases on MedScape and Google. Also gives you the ICD-9 code. |
MediBabble | iOS | Free | Written and audio medical translation tool. Written by UCSF medical student alums (Drs. Alex Blau and Brad Cohen). Update 2/16/11: Free app now includes 5 languages - Creole, Cantonese, Mandarin, Spanish, and Russian. |
AliveCor | iOS | Not currently available (possible release in April 2011 for around $100) | Single lead ECG monitoring by having the patient hold the iPhone with both hands, or placing the iPhone on the chest. Requires an iPhone case adaptor. LifeStone Technologies. |
NerveWhiz | iOS | Free | Neuromuscular anatomy. Can determine the nerve root involved based on areas of weakness and numbness. Developed at University of Michigan. |
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What are your favorite apps?
Year in Training (MS4 or PGY-1, eg) | Specialty (EM, IM, Surg, eg) | Name of app, how you use the app, and/or why it’s great |
MS4 | EM | Perfect OB wheel |
MS4 | IM | Acid Plus ($4.99) to help decipher all things acid-base on ABG. |