The ‘App’ Era and Its Impact in Plastic Surgery

Résumé fourni par la source

We read with great interest the article entitled “Smartphone Applications in Plastic Surgery: A Cross-Sectional Survey of 577 Plastic Surgeons, Fellows, Residents, and Medical Students.”1 The authors assessed the awareness of the availability of mobile applications (apps) on plastic surgery on 2 large platforms. We would like to add a few points of interest. Although the authors assessed the “awareness” of these apps on plastic surgery, the extent to which medical students, residents, and consultants utilize these apps has not been elaborated. The percentage of each group of medical professionals who utilize these applications on a daily or weekly basis would provide crucial information as to the actual importance of these digital applications in clinical practice. Reusche et al described the utilities of apps in plastic surgery in a 2016 systematic review.2 They discussed features of apps related to patient-clinician networking. We wonder how the authors’ results in 2018 to 2019 would compare with those reported in the 2016 systematic review and whether there has been a change in focus or numbers of apps in plastic surgery. A few of the authors’ results1 merit explanation. They report 90.49% of their survey respondents as users of smartphones for “medical purposes.” It would be of value to understand what these purposes entail in clinical scenarios. Furthermore, we wonder if the authors’ results showing that the use of textbooks and journals was significantly lower in the practicing surgeons group are attributable to a generation gap or due to the busy practice with limited time to devote exclusively for educational purposes. The authors’ website on the apps available in plastic surgery is a wonderful compilation with a quantum of information and deserves high commendation.3 On exploring the website, we found the rating assigned to each app on a scale of 0 to 5—it would benefit the scientific community to understand how these apps are rated and what metrics are employed as a mark of their quality and educational/clinical value. Additionally, we would like to suggest a comment option that enables app users to list their views so this website can serve as a comprehensive guide for smartphone-utilizing medical professionals in determining the apps best suited to their purpose. Future studies could potentially evaluate the efficacy of individual or top applications in each subcategory and determine and verify the authenticity of the information provided in such applications. We sincerely appreciate the authors’ efforts to shed light on this advancing modality of plastic surgery education. The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and publication of this article. The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and publication of this article.

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