There are of course other smartphones but the iPhone appears to be the taking the mantle from Blackberry as the most popular doctors' smartphone. As such, to get you started I thought you might be interested in a few apps that I have found useful; they are either free or relatively cheap and available at the iTunes store. Get in touch if you know others.
Medscape: For free this is fantastic. It includes drug information which is searchable, and useful for toxicities and interactions. There is also an enormous library of clinical information on diseases and conditions, and a guide to procedures.
NCCN Guidelines: Get access to these very useful guidelines from the National Comprehensive Cancer Network in the US. In truth they are easier to use on a larger screen but handy on a phone all the same.
MedCalc: This has been around for several years in various formats and has a huge variety of medical formulas.
Qx Calculate: Another good medical calculator app which includes a lung cancer staging tool
Doctors.net: Includes UK Medical News and links to free podcasts for streaming or download. I advise them on the oncology ones so get in touch if you have any suggestions for content.
Convertbot: A very stylish and useful app for converting anything from currency to weight.
Dropbox: If your hospital network firewall allows it, a good way of sharing presentations or documents between home, work, and your iPhone.
I also like The Guardian and The Independent for newspapers, CoPilot for satnav, Empire for movie reviews, Met Office for weather, Pocket Informant for tasks and calendar, The GoodFoodGuide for restaurants, National Trust for days out, and TV Guide.co.uk for a TV guide.
Podcasts: There are some great podcasts you can subscribe to for free via iTunes. They will be updated automatically every time you open iTunes on your computer. Lancet Oncology and NEJM provide summaries of what is in the journal that month. There are also educational podcasts from Oncology Times and Peerview Press although they can be a rather dry listen. Doctors.net as noted above cover oncology topics. There are some great shows to download from the BBC when you want to relax; try Friday Night Comedy or Desert Island Discs.
Use the iPhone to Watch Films on your TV: I have also found that if you don't have an Apple TV or other media player, you can download rental films from iTunes and play then back on your TV via a composite or component cable available from the Apple Store. On a 32 inch TV quality is almost DVD standard, and the sound quality excellent; many people don't seem to know about this feature. You can also use the lead to play slide shows of photos on your TV. I rarely rent DVDs any more.
Data Roaming: Don't forget to be very cautious about turning on roaming when you are abroad. It is all to easy to rack up a large bill - at around £3-£6 a megabyte you can receive some very expensive emails! The EU is capping this in July so that within the EU a cap of 50 Euros per month will be in place unless you ask for additional allowance. It seems an obvious and overdue step.
