A Review of UpToDate: All-in-one-spot Medical Application

Overview

UpToDate is “all-in-one-spot” medical application that contains the most up-to-date research and management recommendations for most medical conditions.  A user has the ability to search for a specific disease and then read about everything there is to know about the disease.  

Features

UpToDate is available on several platforms and a user has the ability to use it on iPhones, Androids, and even computers in the resident lounges.  It is a very simple application to download and after filling out basic background information, a user is able to start researching right at once.  

Once on the main page, several interesting features present themselves to utilize.  A search bar on the top of the page allows a medical practitioner to be as specific or general as they need to be.  What I mean by this is a medical student studying about CHF for the first time may want an overview of the pathophysiology of what is occurring, the epidemiology of how likely this disease is in the population, and common symptoms that are evident during a physical examination.  If you are seasoned medical resident, all that information is already known to you and  perhaps you wish to know about the management for unresponsive patients to the first-line therapy of CHF. After specifying “second-line management of CHF,” a user will see all of the common recommendations that could be used to treat this condition.  

This is an invaluable tool for medical doctors as they can review the research articles to understand the studies and findings. They can then use this material and implement it in their own daily practice in order to manage patients to a higher standard of care. This has been a ritual I have routinely done after rounding on patients who had been diagnosed with diseases I was not very comfortable with managing due to a lack of experience.  I would be able to do my own research on UpToDate in order to learn about some of the background information and then read medical text in order to understand the mechanisms behind the process and why the therapy works.  This gives me a deeper understanding of what to expect and instead of just memorizing drugs to give for conditions like a recipe, I have a better understanding of the physiology behind the disease why certain classes of medication are more valuable to a management regimen because of the receptor they work on.  

Another common topic that I do routinely in my UpToDate history tab is verify medications for patients.  When you don’t have a lot of experience with prescribing medications to patients, UpToDate can be a medical “security blanket” to help ensure you are prescribing the right dosage of a medication and making sure you don’t receive a call from the pharmacy questioning your thought process.  

UpToDate lists common medications to use once a diagnosis has been established and also recommendations for dosing from mild to severe cases.  This blends in quite nicely to the philosophy of most junior medical practitioners to “fake it until you make it.”  Most residents would prefer to not be ridiculed by an attending over something simple like selecting the right medications and dosages so this application could potentially save you from one or two of the unpleasant tongue-lashings you likely will face on a daily basis.