By Tom Stibolt, MD, Mobile Musings Column Editor

Medical Education is an area that seems to have a number of excellent apps designed to support it. In this last installment of our recent series covering advocacy, clinical care, research, patient health, and global health apps, this time I am focusing on apps for practicing medical professionals. There are a large number of these and many of good quality.

Daily Rounds for Doctors is an app that allows sharing of teaching cases. The app presents clinical cases in a journal-like avatar. The cases are carefully curated by a team of 120 doctors. They are selected to matter to a real medical practice rather than rare and unusual cases. The cases are chosen based on five criteria: (1) The case presents a diagnostic, ethical or management challenge. (2) The case highlights aspects of mechanisms of injury, pharmacology or histopathology that are deemed of particular educational value. (3) At least 30 percent of cases are common clinical scenarios (4) The case was managed based on latest evidence-based guidelines (5) The provided information is comprehensively evaluated with no open or missing links. The app is available for free for both iOS and Android.

Meducation is an app used by over 80,000 medical students and to help them in their lifelong learning. It is designed to help users keep up-to-date with the latest news, the most interesting stories, and the most helpful resources. Learning material is packaged in bite-sized pieces with thousands of videos, podcasts, slideshows, mind maps, and mnemonics. The app helps users make sense of whatever they find most challenging. Users can choose content of specific interest to them. The app is also free and available for both iOS and Android.

The NEJM Image Challenge brings a popular online feature for medical professionals to the iPhone and iPod Touch. The app randomly selects from 300 challenging clinical photos published in the New England Journal of Medicine (a new image is added weekly). Simply view an image, choose an answer, and get immediate feedback. The app costs $2.99 U.S. The Journal of The American Medical Association has also released and image challenge app. It is called the JAMA Network Challenge and is free for both iOS and Android.

Prognosis: Your Diagnosis tests users’ diagnostic ability with simulated clinical cases. Each case has a short, but in-depth analysis of the diagnostic process, followed by an up-to-date discussion on the specific condition. New cases are added each week. Cases are reviewed by an international board of 150+ editors to make sure they are accurate and clinically relevant. At present, there are more than 600 scenarios across 30 specialties. The app is available for free for both iOS and Android.

QuantiaMD is an app that presents teaching cases developed by individual faculty members. Topics currently cover 68 topic areas. The cases are presented as a video with text and images that stops to allow users to select answers to questions. A full discussion of the disease entity follows. Many of the cases provide AMA Category 1 credit. The app is available for free for both iOS and Android.

Editor’s note: The ATS does not endorse any of the programs or products mentioned in this column.