Journal Club: Medicine Customer Service

Journal Club for iPhone is a very nice new app that is well worth its $2.99 price. It offers user-friendly access major studies in internal medicine by name, year published, specialty and disease. IF the study you are looking for is in the data base - you can easily find it in no more than 2-3 seconds. Each study begins with a brief "Bottom Line" followed by a 1-2 paragraph helpful description of Major Points. Then follow sections on Design, Methodology, Outcomes, Findings, Funding, you name it - each with full details. As a new app - there has already been a tremendous amount of data accumulated and consolidated into a very well organized format. The 3 areas I'd like to see in future updates are: i) expansion of the data base; ii) a bit more discussion on validity and impact of each study; iii) an app for ipad as well as iphone - but this is a GREAT start to what could become the best app on the medical literature. I LOVE having ready access to key points on many studies I previously had difficulty remembering. THANK YOU for making this app!

It is the expectation that any high-level healthcare provider practice utilizing the highest quality evidence available. Of course, memorizing every landmark trial is unrealistic; the Journal Club offers a great way to quickly reference landmark clinical trials. Additionally, the information is provided in a complete, intuitive, and consistent fashion. Overall, a must-have for those working in healthcare.

This app is great to look and refresh your memory on the studies. There were not so many papers at the beginning but it keeps getting better as they add more and more almost daily I have noticed.

Crashing like crazy on my iPad Mini 4, especially when I try to sort by date. Also, the touch accuracy is totally off. I have to touch below what I want to select. Edit: working fine again

Love this app! It’s such a great resource to use when I need the condensed version of a major study fast and don’t have the time to spend reading and analyzing all the information. Thanks for this resource! Keep adding major surgical papers too!!

An amazing IM intern showed me Journal Club on a a research heavy Stroke Service. It's role on my phone is different than UpToDate's function because of its depth in landmark studies. I recommend it for med students encountering research heavy rotations and those with a genuine interest in navigating landmark studies.

I am an internal medicine resident and this app gave so much to my knowledge, especially during round and one of the attendings cite an RCT. It gives you the summary in very nice way.

This app is not meant to give us as physicians the final word but a starting point to conduct a systematic review.

Invaluable for keeping track of landmark trials. Please continue to expand the library!

I use this all the time in practice. Very easy read and useful.

All the benefits of an actual journal club without the tiresome human interaction. Very worthwhile investment.

Awesome app but please update

For anyone who strives to practice EBM, this app is outstanding.

Very good app to have for medical profesionales.

Update: thanks for big fix! No longer crashing and unusable. I have only looked at the Cardiology section and it is fantastic. Seems like "all" the major articles are here. Updates very frequently. Even articles released this month are here! Can sort articles by name or date. Can view articles from all subspecialties at one or filter by subspecialties eg Cardiology. Can further filter by disease eg heart failure. The summaries themselves are well written with "bottom lines" first followed by a more in depth summary and analysis of the article.

Expert opinion is becoming less and less important. The future of all clinical decision making will increasingly rely on evidence in literature. This app breaks down all the major trials that guide our decision making process into bite sized pieces of information that makes medical literature fun to read! Whether you're trying to make the right decision to help a patient or impress your team this app is a great place to quickly look for relevant information. Try it!!

FYI, if your app is crashing, just uninstall and reinstall it! This is advice from Dr. Plante last time, when I had issues. No hiccups since. If not, Dr. Plante is very quick to respond. I've had this app for several months now. It's a great resource if you happen to be practicing in one of the specialties it has more summaries of, i.e. cardiology. On other subjects like ID, I don't see nearly as many articles. All in all, great tool! Keep it up.

The only thing I find lacking: the breadth and scope isn't quite where I'd like it to be. I've wondered "why are we using X instead of Y for Z?" with some cases and found nothing in the app even though there ended up being a "landmark" paper. I understand that the entries take time to make and that's probably why; it'd be perfect with just a bit more content. Buy this app. You won't regret it.

Really excited about this app and having at my finger tips a very decent assortment of landmark paper summaries. Quick read, succinct, easy to use, I'm super excited to be able to use it just as I am about to start up residency. It might not be 100% comprehensive, yet, but I'm confident it'll quickly accelerate and build up a comprehensive collection. So why not buy now?!

As far as I know there's nothing else out there like this, at least not that I've found. As a med student I love having instant access to these landmark studies when navigating treatment options. As I understand it, the app is based on a collaborative effort, so if you want more studies from your specialty, contribute!

I use this app to look up details everyday for EBM on ICU rounds. I feel it provides a lot of need-to-know information in a concise manner. Definitely easier to refer to this app for most of my evidence needs. It is not a complete list of journals but it has everything you need to practice in an academic setting. Enjoy!

This is a great application that keeps track of the best journal articles that have impacted medical care and decision-making over the years. The information is summarized in a succinct fashion and I love the additional comments as well as the links to the original article or abstract.

Going through literature is a time consuming process that sometimes does not yield any useful information or even incorrect information from poorly done trials. Journal Club save me time since I know I can trust the quality of source.

The app has always worked smoothly on all of my iPhones. I had a great experience suggesting a landmark trial that was not in the app.. Two weeks after I sent the email Boom! They rolled and update with my request. Keep up the good work!

An app every clinical pharmacist should have. Very user friendly interface and it gives access to the full article as well for only $2.99! I hope to see more trials added. Great job so far, very pleased.

The app is not, of course, a comprehensive library of every important study for every speciality, but the authors are adding relevant studies serially the the summaries that are already here constitute a great starting point. Further, the summaries themselves are concise, relevant, helpful, and well-written.

This is a great app. It has a large database of trials to review. I found it very helpful for my clinical rotations and currently use it to brush up on trials for my current practice. The new update looks beautiful. I highly recommend this app. Rich, PharmD

This is a great app, but please add anesthesiology.

I love this app, it is incredibly informative but please add anesthesiology

Succinct summary of important clinical trials right on your phone. Great UI. Easy to sort between specialties and diseases.

I just wanted to verify for anyone reading the reviews that it's 2017 and the app is still being updated regularly. In fact, it added a landmark cardiology paper within less than a month. Love it!

Love it! Very well made great app way to keep up with studies

Continuously updated, very useful on the wards and for studying. Beautiful design! I absolutely recommend it!

Very useful medical journal aggregate

Just try it and you will learn everything about clinical trials?

Very useful for medical professionals. Highly recommended!

I purchased this app a number of months ago and have found that I use it personally in the hospital on a daily basis. It's so useful that I recommend it for all my house staff. I'll even buy it for them if they show me the app on their mobile device. We use it on rounds as well as more didactic teaching sessions. It's simply a great teaching tool. No longer do we have to send one of the house staff off to look for an article. It's immediately at hand. And no more half-baked ideas about inclusion/exclusion criteria or outcomes. The reviews of trials are complete and unbiased. More recently I talked to the App developers about two trials of sepsis not on the app. Within weeks both trials were there for our use. I was pretty impressed with the responsiveness of the developers. Keep up the good work. All in all a great app for myself and my housestaff. Iain Mackie M.D. FRCPC, University of British Colombia.

Best key trials collection

Excellent ,up to date, guideline based. Next step - make comprehensive guideline summaries by piecing the guideline section in various trials as they apply to various diseases - cardio a good place to start!

Great reviews and summaries, respond to questions quickly and request for paper reviews

App is updated frequently with new trials.

This is a fantastic app and a must have for ANY med student, resident or staff physician. It is lacking some studies in specific areas but has monthly updates and is only getting better. Keep up the good work!

I was very disappointed to see that the current version of this app lacks an anesthesiology section, despite it being shown in the screenshots in the App Store. I paid for this app with that notion in mind, being an Anesthesiology resident... after inquiring, I was told that the anesthesia articles were now captured under the critical care section, but that doesn't really seem to be the case... love the idea for this app but disappointed that my specialty isn't really covered as it was billed to be...

I like the concept of app and have found a couple useful papers in it, but I feel like I was duped into purchasing it. The advertisement photo shows an anesthesia section, and I was incredibly disappointed to find that the actual app does not include this specialty (particularly disappointing as in an anesthesia resident).

When I click the buttons to provide feedback or suggest an article, the app says my phone is not configured to send email. Cannot find an email address anywhere in the app or online for support. Limited utility for general surgery, not up to date with latest landmark trials.

The app/website does not disclose its ongoing subscription of $7/month and the subscription won’t show on the subscription list on iPhone. I had $7 withdrawn from my account out of nowhere on the second month after my initial purchase.

Love that I can look up landmark studies quickly but the app hasn’t been updated since 2019.. I wish they had new studies on the app

Hi there if your thinking to purchase this app I'd like you to know that i just bought the app and it's not being updated since 6 years now !!!!

Can’t find trials newer than 2020 - the most important tend to be the latest. Needs an update!

Tremendous potential, great execution so far in terms of format, but weak in terms of volume of content. Hopefully that will change.

This is a trash app which has not been updated for past several years. Don’t waste yoir money

Plz update the trials ..nothing recent

It appears to have been abandoned. No updates since 2019. Before that it was great.

With so many going on at all times its a real let down to see so few updates for the cost of this app.

Not much in the lung cancer space. Was pretty excited about this app. Heard Peter Attia rave about it. Everything I searched for was not found. Very disappointing.

This is 3-years without an update. No worth it

This app shows trials that are ten year old. It crashes and is a total waste of money. I want a refund

Decent start. Many papers missing. Incomplete cross-referencing. Would benefit from larger database

Frustrated with how outdated this is

What happened to anesthesiology? Do we not count?!

Graat for medical specialties, but lacking in the field of OBGYN.

Nothing new on the app.

It's a lovely idea, but it's got a long way to go. It claims to have studies in multiple specialty areas, but there aren't that many topics included, and there is an overwhelming focus on general internal medicine topics. Psychiatry has one small study from 2002 only, with no mention of STAR-D, CATIE, SADHART, or multiple other major studies; Neurology is similarly extraordinarily weak with all studies but one from 2002 or earlier. Rheumatology also has one study only. If I'd known, I would have waited for updates to see if more content would be posted.

This app holds great potential for physicians in constant need of up-to-date evidence based material to apply to their practice and remain abreast of the ever advancing science of medicine. However it is by no means inclusive of all relevant research in any given specialty, let alone being updated often enough. I sincerely hope the creators become cognizant of the need for physicians to have at their tips an app like this that allows them to practice EBM without investing inordinate amounts of precious time.

Am I missing something? I'm shocked at the 5 star reviews. This is the most incomplete list of Clinical Trials I've seen in any app! Seriously? I paid $4.99 when other free apps have a much bigger database of relevant clinical trials. Very nice format of the trials included but just not enough of them to be worth $4.99. Hopefully many more trials will be added and then this could be a "go-to" app bc as I stated the interface itself is really great. Such a shame.

Last update 2019. Please update. Happy to help contribute if there are issues even

Lots of cardiology , less if the rest

Need more effort to put in to be uptodate.