Cardio Calc for the iPod Touch and iPhone is an interesting piece of software. It contains a whole group of calculators all compiled together, and with their “question flow technology” it’s extremely easy to use.

But not if you’re on the road. Sorry.

Unless you can perform a full blood workup you’ll find it next to useless. Which by definition isn’t totally useless. Just in the neighbourhood. Two doors down.

The Body mass index (BMI) calculator will give you an idea when the Krispy Kremes need to stop.

Exercise capacity will show you how good your treadmill skills are.

And the ideal body weight calculator is going to scare you.

But that’s about all of the useful stuff for the paramedic.

A lot of other sections make for interesting reading and if you’re on an inter-hospital transfer you might be able to sift through the patient’s paperwork and calculate some scary stuff, like:

• APACHE II score: gives you the patient’s predicted death rate.
• the patient’s risk of stroke (yearly) with no intervention.
• estimating the patient’s size of cardiac infarction.

And it has some nice definitions, like classes of angina and myocardial infarctions.

It also has some other non-cardiac calculators, like gastroenterology, haematology and nephrology. All totally useless on the road but interesting nonetheless. Especially the calculator that tells you you chances of relapsing into alcoholism.

Lastly there is a pregnancy calculator section that can calculate the gestational age and due dates. Again not good for the road, but good for the paramedic with a family in mind.

Overall, the Cardio Calc is a curious piece of kit. Some great calculators, especially for the doctor in the family, but not much for the paramedic on the road.

Check it out anyway. It’s a free app from the iTunes app store.

We give it: 3 ECG dots out of 10*

*From the paramedical side of things that is.