iPods in Bedside Medical Education

Improving Care in Developing Countries

In late 2005, Drs. Price and Adler traveled to Tanzania under the auspices of the Tanzanian Red Cross to teach an ultrasound course to eight African doctors who provide medical care to some 300,000 refugees. It was at this point that the potential of using the iPod to teach ultrasound in developing countries became readily apparent. “Hand-carried ultrasound is a big deal for these doctors,” Price says, “because they have limited resources. We’re very excited to work with them.”

Shortly after Stone created the brachial plexus video, Price, his wife, also a physician, and children traveled to Nicaragua, one of the countries in which Mobile Medical Media is considering the use of medical training videos on iPods.

“It’s a wonderful model,” Price says, “because, in areas such as Nicaragua and Tanzania, there may not be reliable electricity and there’s generally not internet access. In some of these austere locations, doctors may have an operating room, but they are never going to have CT scans or MRIs. Most of these places are never even going to have plain-film X-rays. But hand-carried ultrasound can easily be used, and a doctor may take a patient to the operating room based on the results of the ultrasound. Having a high-quality, high-resolution screen in the palm of a person’s hand that can show the essential elements of these exams is just fantastic.”

Building a Library for the Bedside

In addition to using the iPod for bedside tutorials on ultrasound techniques and procedures, Mobile Medical Media relies on MacBook Pro and Power Mac G5 systems to develop supplemental training videos for complex machines used in every day medical care as well as for patient-oriented tools. Currently Price uses the iPod at Highland Hospital, and he and his colleagues are working with SonoSite, Inc., the world leader in hand-carried ultrasound, to create new training modules that can be downloaded from SonoSite’s education website, http://www.sonositelearning.com, and Mobile Medical Media’s website, http://www.mobilemedicalmedia.com.

When asked if his team uses Macs to create the videos, Price is quick to emphasize “Of course. We’re using Final Cut Pro and I use Aperture and Photoshop for still photos I take with a Nikon D100. We also use Keynote for our presentations.”

Medical Mobile Media’s partners work in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York, and four of the five founding members have taught ultrasound nationally and internationally. Price says they are able to work on both coasts because “everything we do is digital. Mobile Medical Media has the unique advantage of employing four physician educators in the content development process from start to finish. Dr. Adler records audio in Soundtrack Pro, Dr. Wang and I capture video and photos using Final Cut Pro and Aperture, and all the files are uploaded to an FTP site. Dr. Stone and Mr. Brooks then compile and edit the footage using Final Cut Pro and Adobe After Effects and produce the final product.”

Getting Back to the Bedside

Perhaps the most significant effect of using the iPod at the bedside is the degree to which it allows doctors to spend more time with their patients.

“It really is a paradigm shift in the way medicine is taught,” Price says. “We’re able to get back to the bedside, which is something that, unfortunately, time constraints have moved us away from. I think that being able to use the iPod to review core procedures anywhere, whether it’s in Nicaragua or at the patient’s bedside at a world-leading hospital like UCSF, will not only make time spent in the classroom more effective, but will also significantly increase physician confidence and the quality of patient care.”

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