What’s (app)ening?
By Allyson Fox
Students are finding more and more ways to use their smartphones in their profession, and College of Nursing students are no exception. They are pulling out their phones to help them succeed in school and during their clinicals. Here are some apps they are using:
Devices: iPhone, iPod Touch, Blackberry, Android
Cost: Free
Epocrates is a drug reference app that provides drug information for more than 3,500 brand name and generic drugs. Users can learn a drug’s active ingredients, proper dose according to age, interactions with other medicines, similar products and more. Tahnee Guite uses Epocrates for homework assignments or in clinic when completing prep sheets on patients. “You don’t have to carry around a huge book,” Guite said. “(It) has all the same info and is very up to date.”
Device: iPhone
Cost: Free
This app tests your knowledge of bones. It’s a game with dozens of images and labeled bones. You earn points for time, precision and answering multiple questions correctly in a row. Nathaniel Williams used this app to study for tests. “Benoit’s apps were particularly useful in anatomy and physiology,” Williams said. “Just sit on the bus and study for 20 minutes on the iPhone.”
Micromedex Drug Information
Devices: iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Android, Blackberry
Cost: Free
This app provides drug information on more than 4,500 search terms, including generic names, common trade names, dosage, drug interactions, how a drug is supplied and more. “It is useful for looking up medications that I am responsible for administering to patients during my clinical rotations,” said Solange Colin.
Devices: Android, iPhone
Cost: Free
This app allows you to look up and learn about possible causes of symptoms and locate nearby hospitals, urgent care centers, pharmacies and outpatient clinics “On iTriage you can look up signs and symptoms for each body part, and it gives you a list of possible health conditions,” said Paola Rodriguez.