TEE Standard Views app is a great example of how to use mobile devices in medical education

Review of TEE Standard Views app for iPad

Transesophageal echocardography (TEE) is an important imaging modality for a wide range of cardiac conditions, from endocarditis to congenital heart disease. It’s also increasingly important in several procedures like transcatheter aortic valve replacement and mitral clipping.

Performing transesophageal echocardiography depends on fine probe manipulations to sweep through the various cardiac structures of interest. For trainees, that requires developing excellent hand eye coordination and a thorough understanding of cardiac anatomy in 3-dimensions.

TEE Standard Views is an app developed by a team from the University of Toronto that uses an interactive 3-dimensional heart model to help teach the practice of transesophageal echocardiography. It’s based on a popular web-based resource by the same group.

The app is organized around standard TEE views from the high esophageal position down to the deep gastric position. Along the left side, we have each view option. In the upper left window, we have a 3-D heart model with a posteriorly positioned TEE probe; we can rotate the heart around, which is nice, in particular to see exactly where the probe is positioned relative to the heart structures.

In the heart model window, we can switch to views where we see exactly what the heart is transecting, either in the true anatomic position or rotated.

The upper right window then includes a high quality TEE video showing us exactly what the image looks like. In a nice UI touch, the bounds of the echo image are marked as red on one side and green on the other; The structures of interest are labelled on our heart model. In the lower window, we have several sections of text including lists of the structures that are well visualized in the selected view, practical tips on capturing & optimizing the image, and more.