In obstetrics, the “wheel of life” is an important entity. I love my small green OB wheel that fits easily into my white coat pocket.
Sometimes, though, I cannot find it or it is in my other white coat or I am not wearing an outfit with pockets and choose not to wear my white coat.
A digital wheel, therefore, has become indispensable to me – it is available on my iPhone or iPad whenever I need it.
Looking at the Apple Store, there are many options, begging the inevitable question – which one do you choose?
This is a review of the available obstetric/pregnancy wheels from my perspective as an obstetrician/gynecology Resident Physician. Because of the number of apps available, this review is brought to you as a quick overview of several apps in a ranked list. In honor of 9 months of pregnancy (actually, it really is 10), we bring you 10 pregnancy wheel apps.
#10 MedToolkit ($0.99) -available for iPad and iPhone
The MedToolkit App provides a 6-in-1 feature, including medical calculations. This app offers five medical calculators, including a pregnancy wheel.
From the perspective of a pregnancy wheel, the calculation is rather limited. You have to know the patient’s LMP (last menstrual period) in order to calculate current EGA (estimated gestational age), conception, end of trimesters, and EDD (estimated date of delivery).
The remainder of the app provides some unique features. The sig codes is a searchable database of prescription codes and offers the abbreviation, the explanation, and the origin of the abbreviation. Similarly, the Prefix/Suffix feature lists terms, their meaning, and provides examples.
For the eternally curious of us, you can use this app to learn something new every day. The Abbreviations feature provides an interesting array of abbreviations that are then explained–obstetricians love their abbreviations–so this can be quite helpful for those uninitiated. The Unit Converter feature converts length, weight, temperature, and volume from and into a number of different units.
The Drugs & Meds section provides a searchable, alphabetized monograph of drugs. The information for a particular drug in the app is limited, but does provide a link to complete drug information through Daily Med. For each drug, there is a summary, indications for usage, and contraindications. Pregnancy and lactation is not generally classified and drug information can be incomplete.
For many features of this app, you can add them to your favorites. However, this is not available for the pregnancy app. The limited ability to calculate EGA, LMP, and EDD from available information (i.e ultrasound EGA on last week) limits my use of this app for obstetric purposes.
