With smartphones having already overtaken PC sales and tablets due to overtake PCs by the end of the year, the market for medical apps is ever expanding. In this edition of web review, I have tried to bring together some essential apps for practicing urologists.
General apps
The NICE BNF app is free for users who have an Athens account, and seems even more useful than the online and print versions with an easy to use interface. Goodreader is an excellent document reader which is particularly good for storing documents on a tablet computer for later reading.
Goodreader integrates well with cloud storage solutions, such as Dropbox, so that you can save things to read directly on a tablet. For writing notes, and recording ideas or quick “to do” lists Evernote is available on a wide range of platforms and online and allows you to share your ideas with other individuals.
Urology apps
The Oxford Handbook of Urology app is an excellent mobile resource for urologists. Foundation urology provides valuable information for dealing with basic urological emergencies and problems and is a good resource for medical students to core trainees. Proceeds from the foundation urology app go to to the urology foundation.
Urology flashcards are an excellent question and answer urology resource and there are more than 1500 flashcards. An app that is useful for both teaching and patient interactions is drawMD Urology which consists of drawings of urological anatomy which can be used to demonstrate pathology and aid explanations. Although Mobile eLogbook is not a dedicated urology app it is a great app which allows entry of operative logbook entries whilst you are offline. These are then uploaded to the eLogbook site when you have an internet connection.
Self-monitoring apps
Self-monitoring apps for patients are increasingly popular and Bladder Pal and Prostate Pal apps provide the ability to record bladder diaries, AUA symptom scores and PSA tracking. These apps are clearly aimed for an American market but would be useful for a select group of well informed patients and are currently available for free.
Clearly, this small selection of apps in non-exhaustive, and you may already have your own favourite apps. Some of these apps are simple modern replacements of traditional texts or diagrams that we would draw for patients. The more novel and new categories of patient self-monitoring apps may allow us to change medical practice and even treat patients remotely. This area of medicine is expanding quickly and in the future we may well be recommending apps for patients in addition to prescribing medications or listing patients for operations. If you have any suggestions for apps which you find useful please tweet me @urolsurg.
General
- Goodreader (£2.99, iOS)
- Evernote (Free, iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry)
Urology
- Oxford Handbook of Urology (£32.99, iOS, Android, Blackberry)
- Foundation Urology (£1.50, Android)
- Urology flashcards (Free, iOS, Android)
- drawMD Urology (Free, iOS)
- Mobile eLogbook (Free, iOS)
Apps for patients
- Bladder pal (Free, iOS, Android)
- Prostate pal (Free, iOS, Android)