Smartphones make smarter students

Dear Sir

Over the last decade smartphones have revolutionised the ease of accessing information at anytime. More specifically the apps being distributed on smartphones have created an interactive platform, which can be utilised in multiple different areas. One of these areas is medical education.

A search of the largest application store that is provided by Apple reveals in excess of 2500 medical applications. A large proportion of these provide interactive learning tools for medical students. These include topics related to basic sciences such as anatomy and pharmacology as well as clinical areas in all medical specialties. Having used these applications, we believe that many medical education leads would be pleasantly surprised by the high standard of these tools. Medical schools in USA and UK are already recognising these benefits and are distributing smartphones to their students with pre-loaded software and educational applications related to the medical school's curriculum (Frith 2012; Ozdalga et al. 2012). However, others are reluctant to leave their traditional teaching tools for modern ones.

A small cross-sectional study at the University of Birmingham Medical School identified that 87% of students owned smartphones and of these 70% found them useful in aiding their medical education. The most popular apps were reference materials, anatomy diagrams, podcasts and clinical exam questions.

Technology is advancing at an exponential rate, and it is important that the leaders in medical education recognise this and use this to their advantage. There is already a wealth of medical education applications available on smartphones, therefore medical schools must direct their students towards these as well as investing time and money into creating their own.