By Dr. Jessica Otte

In early January, Elsevier and Modality released a new addition to their suite of popular iPhone medical apps. It is a true multimedia offering, combining text and video to explain the pre-procedure considerations, the technique and positioning to perform the procedure, and the complications and other advertisements for follow-up care. Overall, 27 different procedures are covered; these range from the basic (catheterization and wart treatment) to the more involved (lumbar puncture).

Being a resident physician, I am competent with some of these techniques to the extent that I can perform them by feel. Some, like circumcision, I’ve never seen, let alone performed. Fortunately, Procedures Consult provides a foundation for each. As I’ve mentioned in other reviews of procedure-teaching apps, there is no substitute for hands on experience under the guidance of an expert. However, applications like these may allow you to skip the ’see one’ stage of the common ’see one,’ ‘do one,’ ‘teach one’ approach to developing a skill.

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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.

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If one wanted to get an idea of the potential of the iPhone as a tool for bedside medical and surgical education, this application by Modality and Elsevier would be a good starting place to get inspired. While it seems obvious that a portable device with a great user interface, a sophisticated operating system and great multimedia features should be a shoe-in for portable medical education, what is equally true is that the critical ingredient remains great instructional content.

“Procedures Consult: Internal Medicine – Musculoskeletal” brings together a highly detailed review of orthopedic bedside procedures, such as aspiration of small and large joints, splint application and reduction of joint dislocations, with a well crafted user interface to create an application that will genuinely be useful for emergency room physicians and junior orthopedic residents.  This review will cover how this medical application for the iPhone and iPod Touch goes about teaching these procedures.

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Modality develops a few different types of USMLE Q-Banks for the iPhone. They have a nice You-tube video where you can see these Q-banks in action. If you want an in depth review of the Lange Q-banks Modality has to offer check out our review from earlier in the week.

If you type “USMLE Step 2″ into the App Store, you don’t get many results. One of the applications that shows up is the recently released Lange Q&A: USMLE Step 2 CK app, produced by Modality, and costing $33.99. We’ve reviewed other USMLE study apps for the iPhone in the past, such as the USMLE disease deck, and not been huge fans.

This time I was hoping for better results. I’m just a few weeks removed from taking step 2 CK (hooray!), and figured it would be the perfect time to review this app. I’ll admit, I’ve been a fan of Lange products since using their Pharmacology flashcards for Step 1 studying. I found the flashcards to be well written, concise, and high yield.  I wrote this review in the hopes that this question bank on the iPhone would give me similar results.

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