The iPhone: Is it an indispensable tool for medical students?

Technology is always presenting us with new ways of going about our daily lives, and our inability to be separated from our mobile phone, internet or online social networking is growing. Some technology has become obsolete and fallen into obscurity, while some has never caught on. One that definitely has, though, is Apple's iPhone. As medical students, smartphones have the potential to revolutionise our education and training, and one heavy contributor to this is Apple’s growing library of medical 'apps' (applications made specifically for iPhones). 'Medical' is a headline category on the iPhone App Store, right next to Utilities, Lifestyle and Games. It is even separate from Healthcare and Fitness - something a good chain bookstore is yet to figure out. Entering this category brings up a multitude of free and paid apps that will be of interest to practicing physicians, medical students or other health care professionals. Finding an app to suit one's needs is made even easier by using one of several online app directories. Apps can do everything from looking up reference values, differentiating between types of arrhythmias to performing useful calculations. While this article cannot hope to delve very far into the thousands of medical apps available, what follows is an overview of some of the most popular ones, which may prove useful for the uninitiated.