There are many medical apps out there, take your own heart rate, measure your own blood pressure, you can even test your own urine but which medical apps do qualified doctors actually use?
Below are 3 medical apps widely used by trainee and fully qualified doctors and surgeons.
EPOCRATES
EPOCRATES RX is a well established free medical app for Android and IOS which provides basic information on recommended drug doses and safety information for thousands of prescription drugs.
The app gives details of side effects and adverse reactions, and has pill identification section, to help identify a pill by its colour and shape, it also provides contact information for the drug supplier for any queries they may have.
Epocrates can also check for potential harmful drug interactions, up to 30 drug at a time.
Epocrates have a huge range of professional health care apps, the full range can be accessed here.
BoneStress
BoneStress is an medical app that focuses on joint stress, loading and impact for hip stem designs.
It gives information on radial load transfer between implant and bone in uncemented press-fit femoral stem implantations.
Used as a learning tool for surgeons and doctors, BoneStress can provide valuable information when making decisions on implants and hip replacements.
Many factors have to be taken into account by orthopedic surgeons before deciding on the type of implant needed to try to guarantee the quick recovery of patients, such as age, weight and the angle of the neck of the femur.
The app shows an interactive model that can simulate stress loads under different conditions providing information on radial load transfer between the implant and the adjoining bone.
vCath
vCath, developed by Bangor University, is an app aimed at the trainee neurosurgeon and provides pretty realistic interactive 3D animation to guide a trainee neurosurgeon through the steps of positioning and inserting a catheter into the brain of a 3D virtual patient.
Designed as an aid to neurosurgery, vCath gives the user a virtual interactive tour, so to speak, of inserting a catheter at the correct position, orientation and depth so that it punctures the correct part of the ventricle system.
For obvious reasons this procedure is not something that can be practiced on actual patients, so vCath is a very useful app for gaining some experience.
