"What Angry Birds Can Tell Us About Educating the Next Generation of Physicians"

In September 2011, Catherine Reinis Lucey, MD, will be joining the UCSF campus as our new Vice Dean of Education in the School of Medicine. Dr. Dave Irby is her predecessor in this position. Dr. Lucey brings with her expertise from the work she has done as the interim dean and vice dean for education at the Ohio State University (OSU) College of Medicine and associate vice president for health sciences education for the OSU Office of Health Sciences.

Click on image to view video

I recently happened upon a presentation that Dr. Lucey gave as part of AcademiX, an education series sponsored by Apple highlighting mobile technologies in higher education.

She bases her ideas of using mobile technologies in medical education on the example of the popularity of the mobile app Angry Birds. She discusses how to engage medical students through interactive learning on a mobile device.

Below is my summary of her key presentation points:

* In the age of "technology assisted learning", we learn best when at point of need (ie, when treating a patient)

* Utopia of medical education: Create the expert physician

* Deliberate Practice - concept for developing expertise (by K. Anders Ericsson), basis for "Outliers" (book by Malcolm Gladwell)

* Developing expert performance requires:
(1) increasing complex challenges
(2) immediate feedback and coaching
(3) time to practice, fail, practice, improve

* The science and power of motivation:
Having a cycle of challenge -- Allowing time for correction -- Time for reinforcement -- A time rechallenge

* Example: Computer games
(1) engaged user challenged to master skills in each level
(2) the device becomes the coach by allowing/denying passage/progress to next level based on skills learned

Examples of ideas generated at Ohio State University School of Medicine -

(1) "Angry" Mammograms app
-radiology training for reading mammograms
-provides levels of complexity & nuances
- tiered in difficulty
- develops pattern recognition

(2) "Angry" Heart sounds
- auditory learning
- reinforce through repetition, like listening to pop music over and over to learn the melody and lyrics

Goal - to embed mobile devices into medical curriculum to increase efficiency in learning in the process of creating the expert physician.

* Presentation video at http://tinyurl.com/3qvjznt
* Presentation slides at http://tinyurl.com/3ptfuon
* Dr. Lucey's bio at http://tinyurl.com/3oktlaa

Check out previous postings from my blog that relate to gaming apps for medical education topics - http://mededlit.blogspot.com/search/label/games

Medical Mnemonics Apps

So much to memorize, so little time. Is that the story of your medical school life?

Well, the NerdcoreLearning Board Review Medical Mnemonics app has come to your rescue. This app is available for $0.99 at the iTunes Apps store online. The high-yield content has been selected by attending physicians and students to provide an extensive collection of easily browsable topics and organs systems.

In addition to mnemonics, the app also provides news feeds from the Nerdcore Learning website.

Special thanks to first-year med student Asya Ofshteyn for pointing me to the Nerdcore app.

Another mobile resource is available from Medical Mnemonics.com. It is compatable with Palm OS and is also available as a browsable website and PDFs are available compiling the mnemonics.

Okay, enough talk for now, go forth and learn!

Calculate free mobile app

Calculate is a free app from QxMD. It is a decision support tool that has over 150 clinical calculators. It is available for the iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, and Android.

The app is an upgrade and integration of the other QxMD's apps for Cardio Calc, Neph Calc, GI Calc, Heme Calc and Pregnancy Wheel.

User feedback is very high for this app. Check it out for yourself!

Watch this non-narrated quick tour:

Medical Radio: free iTunes app

Take a break from listening to the top 25 songs on your iPod. Here's a free app from the iTunes Store that can satisfy your thirst for knowledge while you're at the gym or while commuting.

Medical Radio is a free app from ReachMD. These weekly 15 minute broadcasts, for physicians by physicians, are from the Sirius-XM satellite radio channel XM160.

- Over 5000 searchable podcasts

- Covers medical information, conversation, and education (CME & CE) about general to specialty medicine topics

- Take a CME or CE course exam directly on your mobile device

- Includes FDA and CDC updates

- Compatable with iPhone, iPod Touch, & iPad

Give this app a try and let me know what you think of it. Happy listening and learning!

iRadiology App

The iRadiology App is available for free to download at the iTunes Apps store.

This app allows you to browse amongst 500+ radiology cases to improve skills to interpret plain film, CT, and MRI readings.

The cases are based upon materials from Dr. Gillian Lieberman, the Director of Harvard Medical Student training and Associate Director of the Residency Program at Beth Israel Medical Center.

You can increase the zoom capability on your iPhone to better view the images:

1. Go to "Settings", tap "General", then "Accessibility"
2. Tap "Zoom", and slide the Zoom feature to the "On" position

Tapping on the "Findings" link related to an image will bring up more information pertaining to the featured clinical case. One medical student reviewer on the web commented that he found this to be high yield information in studying for the USMLE 1 Steps 1 & 2 exams.

Check it out!

3D Brain App

Whether you're a novice or an advanced learner studying the brain, I think you'll find the 3D Brain a worthy free app to download to your iPhone or iPod Touch.

(1) Select the "Structures" icon to view different regions of the brain

(2) Select the "L" Labels option to view the labelled version of the brain region

(3) Selecting the "T" Info provides an overview, case study, associated functions, cognitive disorders, damage, substructures. The Research Reviews at the very bottom of the Info page lists research articles that link to PubMed.

Download this app for free from the iTunes apps store.

Swiping your finger to the right/left or up/down on a brain image allows you to rotate the view. Pretty cool stuff!

Your brain will thank you for downloading this handy app.

Medical Games for your iPhone/iPod Touch

I finally caved in last month and got an iPod Touch. (Actually, it was part of a package deal with a MacBook laptop at the campus bookstore.) Wow! I must confess - the little device is power packed with goodies. There are a mind-boggling amount of apps for just about everything.

I stumbled upon two medically related games that can help you have fun while you study. Both are free from the iTunes apps store.

Diagnose the Disease

This game is from the makers of the Epocrates drug resource. You can race the clock to test your knowledge based on the images provided. You can compete with top clinicians and submit your scores. This game is also available to play on Facebook.

Speed Bones Lite

This game tests how well you know your bones. Race the clock and earn points when you answer the questions about skeletal anatomy. Using the Practice Mode lets you learn specific regions. Review Mode replays your mistakes so that you can learn from them.

Since I neither know my diseases nor bones in great detail, let me know if you try out these games and tell me what you think. I believe that having fun will facilitate learning when put to good use. Let's hope these games prove true.

Epocrates and Lexi-Comp Drug apps for mobile devices

For those of you techy mobile users out there in the health care field, it may not be a mystery that Epocrates is a very popular free app available. For those of you not yet in the know, here's what's to know.

The free version includes:

- Over 3300 drug monographs, updated weekly - Adult and pediatric dosing - Pill ID - Drug interactions - Tables/Calculators - Formulary information

Epocrates is downloadable on the iPhone/iPod Touch, Blackberry, Palm, Win Mobile, and Win Smarthone.

Lexi-Comp Individual Application is also a free mobile app for drug information. It is compatable with iPhone/iPod Touch, Palm OS, Pocket PC, and Blackberry.

If you are on the UCSF network, you can access the complete Lexi-Comp database for UCSF, SFGH, Laguna Honda and Medi-Cal formulary information, as well as site-specific drug therapy guidelines.

Let me know if there are any other mobile drug apps that you would recommend. In the meantime, these two should cover quite a bit of ground.

Diagnosaurus app for your handheld device

If you've used the Diagnosaurus tool for (DDx) differential diagnosis in the AccessMedicine database, you'll know how handy it can be. Now, it can actually be "handy" literally in the palm of your hand.

Diagnosaurus allows you to browse by symptom, disease, organ system, or view all of the 1000+ differential diagnoses. There are versions of this tool for the iPhone/iPod Touch, as well as PDA's.

iPhone app is $0.99 from the App Store on iTunes. The PDA version is a free download.

If you'd like more advice on finding medical apps for mobile devices, please visit this site.

DoctorCalc's Recommended Medical Apps for the iPhone

I recently found myself having dinner with a table full of medical residents and half of them owned iPhones. This came to light when it was time to calculate the tip for the dinner bill. The iPhone owners were scrolling to the Tip Calculator app on their phone.

Once the tip was squared away, I asked if they had any medical applications on their iPhone. There are a few that seem pretty nifty. So I looked to see if there are any listings of other medical apps for the iPhone and iTouch.

I found DoctorCalc.com - a site that provides nine different medical apps for the iPhone/iTouch. They look all to be free of charge.

The nine specific applications cover:

Medical Calculator, Normal Lab Values, Rapid Sequence Intubation, Vaccines, Sedation, Jaundice, Lab Unit Converter, Patient Tracker, and Swine Flu Tracker.

I know that there are plenty more medical apps out there for the iPhone. Some free and some for a purchase fee. I have not jumped on the iPhone bandwagon yet, so if you do have an iPhone and are curious to test out any of these apps, please leave a comment as to what you think of these. And feel free to provide your own recommended medical apps.

Perhaps someone out there can convince me that I need to become an iPhone convert. Until then, I'll be sitting on the front porch with my laptop and blog waiting to hear from you all!