App Review: The Med Life

The Med Life app acts as a companion to the medical content live-streamed on Dr. Adam Goodcoff’s YouTube channel. You participate in live medical simulations with other healthcare professionals worldwide, attempting to diagnose and treat practice patients through group polls.

Why The Med Life App Exists

The Med Life website and social media channels are known for delivering medical content that is as educational as it is entertaining. With many colleges and continuing education classes shifting to online, lecture-based formats, medical students, professionals, and laypeople have fewer opportunities to learn with hands-on training. The Med Life app fills in this gap through live-streamed medical simulations.

Who The Med Life App Is Meant for

The Med Life App is intended for medical students, professionals, and curious laypeople who want the opportunity to get hands-on experience with different patient scenarios. The application simulates multiple monitors, patient vital signs, and treatment options that connect to the content from Dr. Goodcoff’s livestream.

Decisions are made through group polling. You’re able to see if your answers match up to others in your peer groups. If you make a mistake, you get to learn more about why the other option was better for that particular scenario. The medical simulations come in many forms, and the livestream content delivers a lot of information in an engaging way.

Benefits of The Med Life App

The Med Life app comes with many medical education benefits.

• 15 ECG rhythms: The simulations can use more than 15 different heart rhythms, which allows you to better understand the situations you would see them in. These rhythms match up to the scenario presented on the livestream.
• Multiple monitors: You’ll need to keep an eye on blood pressure, oxygen saturation, and other vital signs to stabilize the patient during the simulation.
• Variable respiratory rate: Use this information to determine the best course of action during the simulation.
• Capnography: Track the patient’s CO2 pressure with this monitor, which is used for scenarios that involve an ICU patient or one who is under anesthesia.
• Learn from your peers: The combination of the patient monitors on the app and the live-streamed content make these hands-on sessions a social experience. You’ll get feedback in the moment as you choose treatment options. Learn more about why certain choices are made and all the factors that go into these decisions.
• Get hands-on with The Med Life medical content: If you enjoy The Med Life website and social media channels, the companion application gives you the opportunity to go deeper with this material.

Drawbacks of The Med Life App

This application does come with a few drawbacks.

• Treatment decisions are made as a group consensus: The group participating in the medical simulation may make decisions you disagree with. You can’t go against the crowd, which may be a frustrating experience. You’re also unable to add new choices to the poll, as these are configured by Dr. Goodcoff for the simulation.
• Currently iOS-only: An Android version is in development, but it’s not yet available for download. You need an iOS device running 10.0 or greater to use this application.
• Requires tuning in during livestreams: If you’re a medical student, your schedule may not sync up with the scheduled The Med Life livestreams. The application only works alongside this content, so it’s not useful if you can’t get to the real-time experience. You do receive notifications when the channel goes live, which can help with the timing.
• Simulations do not count for continuing medical education credits: The learning opportunities offered by the livestream do not count toward any CME requirements you need to hit each year.

The Med Life App Pricing

This application is available for free from the iTunes App Store.

Customer Reviews

The Med Life app has a limited number of reviews, but the brand as a whole has 1.5 million people following it on social media channels and gets 50 million impressions monthly.

Alternatives to The Med Life App

Full Code is a full-blown, standalone simulation of an emergency room experience. It features 3D graphics and a realistic approach to 105 medical scenarios. These cases provide broad exposure to common and uncommon occurrences you may encounter in an ER. You go through all the steps that you would in a real-world situation, starting with the patient’s history and ending with the right diagnosis and treatment. The application scores you across six competencies to show you how well you did in the simulation.

The Full Code team adds two scenarios to the application each month, and you can earn CME credits through this tool. You can access this content on iOS, Android, or through a web browser. You need a subscription to play Full Code. The pricing for the subscription plans starts at $4 per month. If you want to earn CME credits, you pay $190 per year. This application is geared more toward the practicing medical professional than The Med Life app is.

SimMon is a simulated patient monitor that uses two iOS or Android devices in tandem. One of the devices acts as a remote control, while the other shows the monitoring display. You’re able to make changes to the patient’s oxygen saturation, heart rate, and blood pressure with this tool. SimMon is a $19.99 one-time payment and is primarily intended for medical students and teachers. It only focuses on a limited set of patient monitoring tools compared to The Med Life.

The Med Life App offers an opportunity for people interested in medicine to get hands-on experience with real-world scenarios. This brand does an excellent job at combining education and entertainment, which makes the livestreams more engaging than drier learning experiences. It may not be the best fit for busy medical students and professionals with demanding schedules, but it’s worthwhile if you can catch the livestreams.