Is There an iPhone in the House?

Educators from medical schools to the nation’s oldest journalism school are beginning to call for students to have an iPhone, an iPod Touch or some other type of smartphone as required classroom materials.  OSU’s medical school has committed to handing out an iPod Touch (an iPhone without phone capability) to 1,400 medical students and residents according to Catherine Lucey, vice dean for education.  The devices will be used for everything from viewing instructional videos to studying medical vocabulary, taking quizzes and looking up information during clinical rotations. 

This follows a nationwide trend as practicing physicians turn to these devices as aides in diagnosing and treating patients.  The iTunes app store currently lists 674 applications related to medicine.  One such app, Epocrates, helps doctors identify a given medication a patient may be taking.  Dr. Steven Schwartz uses this to help his patients remember what specific pill they take for certain conditions by inputting characteristics such as color and shape into his iPhone and then sharing with the patient pictures of possible pills to confirm the prescription. 

He also uses his iPhone to pull up instructional diagrams and videos, write electronic prescriptions, look up drug interactions and view X-ray and MRI scans among other applications. 

Some critics are concerned that if physicians are using their devices during a consultation they are looking down at a screen instead of maintaining personal contact with the patient.  “We as medical educators have to teach students to use technology and still say patient-focused,” says Lucey, adding that as smartphones become more prevelant, protocols will evolve in how to use them with patients.

Meanwhile, the University of Missouri, the nation’s oldest journalism school, has also announced that incoming freshmen will be required to use a smartphone, preferably an iPhone, as part of their curriculum.  Brian Brooks, associate deanof the school, says that there is some research that says if a student can hear a lecture a second time, by way of their iPhone, they can retain three times as much of the information.  Budding young journalists will be expected to use their iPhones to download educational materials as well as perform fact checking while on the scene reporting from a plane crash or a town hall meeting.

For more details on both these programs:

• See the story in the Washington Post on the use of smartphones in medical education.

• And the story on use of iPhones at the University of Missouri’s Journalism School.