For many doctors, one of the most difficult parts of the job is phrasing complex medical problems and procedures in ways that the layman can understand. For example, many patients are not familiar with anatomy. If you say arm, leg, or shoulder while explaining to someone why they are in pain, it may not really express the area of the issue as well as ulna or scapula. Or if you’re trying to enlighten a patient on the steps involved in an open-heart surgery (often a time-sensitive operation), the fact that he doesn’t know what a ventricle is (or where it is, for that matter) could prove difficult. It’s not like you’re speaking another language, but in all honesty, you may as well be. This is where the DrawMD series of apps can offer you a solution that helps you to communicate with patients more effectively and efficiently through graphic images and drawing functionality.

For starters, doctors will be happy to hear that there are currently ten different DrawMD applications that focus on a variety of disciplines, including Anesthesia & Critical Care, Cardiology, ENT, Female Pelvic Surgery, General Surgery, OBGYN, Orthopedics, Pediatrics, Urology, and Vascular fields. All are available for the iPad only, and incredibly, they are all free to download. And each provides you with simple tools and functionality that will help you to interface with patients. But what can you get with these apps that isn’t available from, say, a standard copy of Gray’s Anatomy?

For starters, you’ll have access to color diagrams and cutouts particular to the app you choose. If you’re a cardiologist attempting to explain to a patient where a blockage is located, for example, this could provide for a pretty handy visual aid. But even better than these basic diagrams are the scenario templates. Even a patient that has knowledge of the basic layout of the heart may not necessarily grasp the concept of stent placement and usage. So a graphic that illustrates how and where a stent is placed can definitely supplement the information you provide verbally. And as you may have guessed from the name, DrawMD allows users to draw directly on the diagrams provided in order to provide patient-specific images to demonstrate diagnoses and treatments that patients may otherwise have difficulty grasping.

Of course, if your freehand drawing abilities leave something to be desired, all hope is not lost. Each app provides access to a growing library of stamps that allow users to customize graphics. These stamps can be adjusted in a number of ways to suit your needs; you can rotate, resize, flip, and drag them in order to position them correctly on your graphic template. And if none of the base images or stamps is quite right, you can import images that better suit your purposes. Finally, you can save and send images as PDFs or print them out via Printopia or AirPrint. Since most patients won’t have undertaken even basic CNA training in Rhode Island, Texas, or California, it is incumbent upon doctors to explain things in a way that the layman can understand. The free iPad apps from DrawMD offer truly remarkable and easy-to-use tools for precisely this purpose.

Editor’s Note

Thanks to Evan Fischer for this guest post. He is a freelance writer and part-time student at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, California.