Smartphones are well known for providing plentiful distractions, but otolaryngology residents, and even and those who have left their training days far behind, are using smartphone apps to navigate work/study life and make more efficient use of their time.
Explore This Issue
January 2023
In general, I think online education is quickly surpassing the traditional enduring formats as it is more current, readily available, and easily accessible. —Sonya Malekzadeh, MD
Sonya Malekzadeh, MD, residency program director at the Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C., and American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery education coordinator, was involved with the development of Academy Q, an otolaryngology knowledge assessment program that’s now available in the OTO Logic portion of the academy’s website. “In general, I think online education is quickly surpassing the traditional enduring formats as it is more current, readily available, and easily accessible,” she said. Academy Q was the first otolaryngology online self-assessment program and was vetted by multiple committees of expert specialists.
Although these types of apps can be useful, they can also cause some unexpected distractions. “At the University of Colorado, the hospitals have designated a feature called Secure Chat as the primary mode of communication about consults and inpatient questions,” said residency program director Cristina Cabrera-Muffly, MD. “This means residents are constantly getting messages through their EPIC mobile app (Haiku). Seeing residents on phones has led to some miscommunication with faculty, who perceived the resident was on their phone rather than paying attention,” said Dr. Cabrera-Muffly. In fact, the resident was answering the nearly 50 messages that nurses and support staff send them throughout the day.
They also had to slightly change their rotations so that a junior resident is assigned to consults and floor management only instead of being assigned to a clinic at the same time, since the messages are so disruptive to their learning experience.
Johnathan D. McGinn, MD, residency program director at Penn State Hershey Medical Center, said he and his colleagues do find residents using their phones frequently, but almost always it’s using the device to do work-related tasks like checking the electronic health record or using a HIPAA-compliant messaging tool with colleagues and peers regarding patient care. “We do exclude phone use during educational conferences to allow for resident focus on the learning and avoid distractions,” he said.
On balance, however, most believe the utility of apps can outweigh the distractions, particularly given that the technology is native to younger generations of physicians. Below are some apps that otolaryngologists and otolaryngology trainees are using to make their education and work lives easier.