Commentary on: A Plastic Surgeon's Guide to Applying Smartphone Technology in Patient Care

Abstract

In “A Plastic Surgeon's Guide to Applying Smartphone Technology in Patient Care,” Workman and Gupta provide a brief overview of the currently available plastic surgery smartphone applications (“apps”) and discuss their potential impact related to social media. They have classified apps into several categories, including surgeon/practice apps, academic-based apps, patient reference apps, and nonapplicable apps. They identified a total of 161 plastic surgery–related apps, of which 54 were practice-based apps. Twenty-three academic-based apps were identified; however, most were felt to be geared toward residents, medical students, and college students, with no social media benefit. Plastic surgeon locator apps were discussed in the patient reference apps section; these included the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS) app, Project Beauty app, and FaceDecide MD app (which is no longer available in the United States). “Nonapplicable apps” included those that allowed for various photo-morphing capabilities but were not patient or practice focused. The authors concluded that smartphone apps have the potential to change the patient-surgeon interaction and will be increasingly important …