Additional medical apps for my wife's new Android smartphone

When my wife (a family physician) received her HTC Droid Incredible last week, I loaded the following medical apps on her Android smartphone:

• Epocrates
• Skyscape
• QuantiaMD

Here are some of the other medical apps I recently installed for my wife:

• MedPageToday
• Lexi-Comp
• QxMD

She may purchase a medical book through Unbound Medicine. She's using UpToDate via the super-fast mobile web browser on her HTC Droid Incredible.   If you haven't tested the web browser on this phone, you have to give it a try. It's phenomenal!

She's still waiting for an Android app from Medscape and ReachMD (so that she can listen to my Mobile Medical Minute on ReachMD). 

CME on your smartphone

There are several ways to get CME (continuing medical education) credit by using your smartphone.  Several years ago, there were only a handful of options. Today, there are many more ways to get CME on your smartphone.

Here are some examples of medical apps, medical websites, and other smartphone resources that will allow you to participate in CME activities on your smartphone:

• Epocrates Mobile CME
• Real CME
• ReachMD
• Medscape
• Skyscape CME Stat
• QuantiaMD
• MedPageToday (mobile website)
• UpToDate (point of care CME)
• XtraCredit

This is not a comprehensive list, but you'll see that this list continues to grow each year. The bottom line is that busy physicians are looking for ways they can get their CME credit by using their smartphones. They're probably not going to spend a few hours going through a CME activity on a device that has such a small screen, but they'll spend 15 or 30 minutes reviewing something. As smartphone web browsers become more sophisticated and more powerful, we'll be capable of viewing almost any type of web page on a smartphone. This means that you'll get to view any type of online CME on your smartphone.

CME on a smartphone

There are several ways of getting Continuing Medical Education or CME credit using your smartphone. Allow me to list several ways (this is NOT meant to be a comprehensive list):

• Mobile CME via Epocrates
  
• Skyscape CME STAT
  
• UpToDate via mobile web browser (paid subscription required)
  
• MedPageToday via mobile web browser
• ReachMD for Apple iPhone
  

There are many other sources that are providing CME for mobile devices, so stay tuned. As mobile web browsers become more powerful and allow Flash movies and other multimedia formats, we should be seeing more forms of handheld CME delivered via mobile web browsers. This way, clinicians will get to use almost any type of smartphone to participate in these CME activities. You won't be limited to a specific operating system if you're simply using a mobile web browser.