I made my first big App store purchase “the other day”.

The ECG Guide by QxMD.

It’s starting to be a bit of a trend with this company, but hey if they’re putting out the good stuff then the flock will follow.

This time the good people of QxMD have packaged a pretty standard ECG guide for beginners and formatted it for the iPod touch and iPhone.

That’s all well and good. And that was all I was expecting from a $5.99 application. You’re looking at 6+ times that amount for a decent ECG book for beginners.

So what’s it good for:

• Learning the basics: lead positions and ECG interpretation including descriptions of the ECG segments.
• Learning about the effect chamber enlargements have on the ECG.
• Detailed descriptions of ischaemia and infarction.
• Learning about the ECG’s of arrhythmias: its mechanism, blocks, and a whole lot more.
• Showing that there are other reasons for ECG changes: Hypothermia, thyroid problems, pulmonary disease, and more.

The other bonus is the large amount of sample ECGs. Click on Atrial Fibrillation, turn the gadget on its side and blow up the sample for closer inspection. Nice.

The other little feature is the quiz. This brings up a random ECG for you to interpret. Click the info button to find out what it was. Then click next for another one. This quiz functionality could have been done with finesse but they’ve copped out a little. Multi-choice perhaps and a scoreboard to track your progress. Whatever.

Anyhoo, overall this is a neat little piece of kit. It’s just a re-badged basics of ECG book, but if that’s what you’re after then go for it. If you’re in the medical business it’s a tax deductible $5.79.

We’ll give it 3.5/5.

Pros: For a repacked basics of ECG book, it’s neat and comprehensive. Good selection of ECGs. Utilises the iPod/iPhones screen rotation functionality well. Cheap.

Cons: Not greatly useful on the road. The quiz could have been slicked up a bit.

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.