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Repetition, repetition, repetition.  Most of the information I retained from the first few years of medical school is what I learned by repetition.  Unless I use some bit of knowledge regularly, I tend to forget it.  Reading an EKG is one of those skills in medicine that requires a lot of background knowledge, the ability to recognize patterns, and the clinical experience to know what looks “okay” and what looks “definitely not okay.”  While no app or textbook can replace the practical skills that one acquires through months or years of interpreting real EKGs and seeing patients, it helps to have a quick reference of ground rules and basic pattern descriptions to refresh one’s mind on the basic reading rules of EKGs.

Medical students and residents have been carrying around pocket-sized EKG manuals for decades.  But over the past several months a few ECG/EKG apps have cropped up on the Android Market, hoping to fill the need for an electronic alternative.

Here I take a look at three EKG interpretation and learning tools for Android mobile devices: EKGdroid, EKG:Advanced, and EKG Calipers.  Can Android really replace those pocket manuals and teach the next generation of doctors to read EKGs?

Kaplan’s recently released USMLE app, Kaplan Step 1 Qbank, contains a promo code for the desktop version of their full Step 1 Qbank.  The promo code will net you 25% off their Qbank, and for those of us that used Kaplan for our Step 1 studying, that’s welcome news.  Even if you get the minimum 1 month Qbank, this coupon code will save you over $30.  The pricing for the various Kaplan Qbanks can be found here.  Beware the promo code expires in a few days, March 31st.

We’ll be doing a full review of this recently released Qbank for the iPhone.  Currently this app only contains 100 USMLE questions, but its free.  Depending on the type of feedback they receive for this app, Kaplan has told us they plan to release a full version of their Q-bank on the iPhone.

Personally, I’m still waiting to see if USMLE World, my favorite USMLE prep Qbank, will come out with an iPhone app….

Campbell’s Operative Orthopedics is a cornerstone of any orthopedic surgeon’s library. It’s one of the few volumes that every resident knows he or she will have to own – no point complaining about the price. If a junior resident shows up to do a case and has not at least read the requisite chapter in Campbell’s, then they should be prepared to go no further than a few hours of holding retractors for the attending and making idle chit-chat.

So, the arrival of an iPhone version of this four volume tome is certainly an important milestone. How did they do? This full review will explain.

MedPage Today’s motto is, “Putting Breaking Medical News Into Practice”.  I’ve been a fan of the website, medpagetoday.com for a few years now because they provide great medical commentary in a short, concise manner.  I call it “high-yield” reading.  Their articles often highlight key papers from the New England Journal or other reputed journals.  Another reason I’m a fan is because of their partnership with the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine to provide Continuing Medical Education(CME).  A partnership with a well respected academic institution definitely gives me greater respect for their articles.

All the content from their website has now been brought to the iPhone platform, and the app is free!  Although the application was released awhile back, it was recently updated with some nice additions.  In this review of the MedPage Today Mobile App I’ll cover how to best utilize the features this free application provides.

A new radiology learning tool was just released in the App Store, the iRadiology App.  This app has a catalog of over 500 radiology cases designed to help medical students and residents improve their plain film,CT, and MRI reading skills.  The cases are derived from Dr. Gillian Lieberman, who is the currently Director of Harvard Medical Student training and Associate Director of the Residency Program at Beth Israel Medical Center.  This legitimizes the content of the application.  In this review we’ll discuss the application further and also show you how to turn on the “Zoom” feature built into the iPhone that will enable you to improve the utility of this medical app.

Free medical applications for the iPhone are being released on a daily basis, but not all of them are useful.  This isn’t a surprise since they are after all free to download.  However, there are definitely some free medical applications worth downloading.

This will be a regular column on iMedicalApps.com, where we will periodically post commentary on recently released free medical apps that are actually useful from a physician, medical student, or any other healthcare providers’ perspective.

In this post I’ll focus on three free medical applications related to the following: clinical trials, Framingham scale, and a radiology teaching app.

iCME is a simple mobile database for physicians to track CME (continuing medical education) events. Appreciating its purpose is clouded at first since it doesn’t seem obvious that keeping a list of one’s conferences is weighty enough of a task to devote an entire application. But, it turns out, that is indeed the one and only function of the application. Specifically, the user is asked to manually enter the date, title and hours of every CME event attended and, in return, the user is rewarded with a display of all their events in table format. As every physician needs to document continuing medical education at each biennial state license renewal, the need for recording such events certainly exists. However, the question is whether a dedicated smartphone application beats a simple piece of paper.

The interpretation of ECGs is a difficult art to master for medical students and house officers alike. We are all taught to keep to the “Dubin method” and work through each 12-lead study with consistent patience no matter how abnormal the ECG initially appears. A particularly talented cardiologist once told me that ECG interpretation is often equal parts evidence based science, art, and gut feeling. So how is one to navigate the complexities of ECG interpretation without getting overwhelmed? Instant ECG, a well polished ECG interpretation and study guide by iAnesthesia LLC, is how.  Currently the app is on sale for $0.99 in the App Store.  I have used this application for 2 weeks (although not on a cardiology service), and so far am extremely pleased with the results.  I’ve also used the ECG guide, which was previously reviewed on this site.  In the the conclusion I’ll discuss my favored app.

The developer of the Clinical Orthopedic Exam App has been gracious enough to give us promotional codes for the readers of our site. The App costs $39.99 regularly. We did a review of this app a few months ago that you should check out if you haven’t already.  Read more to access the the promo codes.