There's a nice survey of medical app use in the San Jose Mercury News today, which offers several good examples of how clinicians are using medical apps to augment their practice:
The mother charged into the emergency room unannounced carrying her 8-year-old daughter, who was having seizures and couldn't breathe. As she placed the girl on a gurney, Dr. Kathy Corby instinctively reached for her iPhone.
. . .The child has a rare hereditary disease, and Corby needed to become an instant expert. So she began scanning a number of medical apps loaded onto her iPhone to access "everything you can't remember on your own in the midst of something like this."
Here's another from a Stanford clinical instrutor, Joe Becker, MD:
Dr. Joe Becker said medical apps play a critical role when he treats patients in India and Nepal as part of a global health fellowship through Stanford University. "I am not as familiar treating typhoid fever as I am heart attacks," said Becker, a faculty member at Stanford University's Department of Surgery, Division of Emergency Medicine.
The article also mentions the School of Medicine's initiative to give first-year medical students and Master of Medicine students iPads.
Previously: Stanford medical and Master of Medicine students will receive iPads, Do mobile apps for physicians actually help them?, Study finds more doctors are using smartphones, and A look at three iOS medical app developers
