the 2 best medical apps

There are a lot of medical apps available.

Study aids, question banks, pharmacology references, radiology databases, interactive medical games

In no particular order*, these are the medical apps currently downloaded on my phone:

• Journal Club
• UCSF Hospitalist Handbook
• Hematology Outlines
• Blood Journal
• 2015 ASH Conference App
• UpToDate
• AAFP
• ACP Clinical Practice Guidelines
• ASCVD Risk Calculator
• USMLE World Q Bank*
• Micromedex Drug Reference Essentials
• Micromedex Drug Information
• Epocrates
• Eko electronic stethoscope**
• Medscape

Out of this decent-sized list, there's only two apps I really use on a regular basis and would highly recommend to others:

The UCSF Hospitalist Handbook

The absolute best resource-at-your-fingertips. No, it doesn't go into detail on pathophysiology, cite supporting trials, or teach you the fundamentals of medicine. What it does do, however is provide simple, concise differentials and action plans for common medical problems.

Patient in Afib with RVR? Metoprolol tartrate 5 mg IV push q5 minutes x 3.

AST/ALT in the thousands? Shock liver, Budd-Chiari, acute biliary obstruction, severe viral hepatitis, autoimmune hepatitis, acetaminophen toxicity.

While I always eventually reach for a more comprehensive resource, more often than not, The Hospitalist Handbook is my starting point.


Journal Club

Despite everything I just told you, I actually don't base every medical decision on what a little purple app tells me to do.  Sometimes, I actually try to put some evidence behind my thinking. That being said, when you're being paged q10minues, it's hard to find time to wade through the entirety of PubMed. That's where Journal Club becomes super helpful.

Journal Club lets you quickly and easily search landmark trials in clinical medicine. You can search by trial name (ie, "PARADIGM-HF") or key words (ie, "neprilysin inhibitor"). For each major trial, the app provides a one-sentence "bottom line" and then a few paragraphs and bullet points summarizing the trial in more detail.

do you see this? because this is amazing. 

Of the rest of the medical apps on my phone, I occasionally use the ASCVD risk app in clinic (although the calculator's easy to find online), and rarely reference the AAFP app for vaccine recommendations.

I use UpToDate on the computer almost daily, but only rarely use my phone version (mainly at the VA, who recent UNSUBSCRIBED TO UPTODATE. I had no idea how much I relied on UpToDate for drug dosing guidelines and general medical knowledge until I was covering at the VA and IT WASN'T THERE.  But anyway. I digress. Apps!)



*That was a lie. These are in a very particular order. I organize the apps in my phone by, um, color. Don't knock it till you've tried it.

**Why is this still here? I took Step 3 almost a year ago. I need to clear out my apps more often.

***I've had the Eko for a year, and still can't decide if I like it. This may also warrant a longer future post...