Ten Useful Apps for Dentists

More and more people are relying on mobile apps to help manage their personal and professional lives.

Wesleyan Junior Advsiory Board members Jasmine Lobo (4th year dental student) and Fahad Alawsi (DF1) have kindly shared their top smartphone apps that they believe will benefit dental students and trainees.

Fahad Alawsi, a DF1 in Leeds and a Dental Core Trainee in Maxillofacial Surgery in Bradford and Jasmine Lobo, 4th year student at Leeds Dental School.

1. BNF, £Free to NHS staff or £52.99

Perfect for hospital work. The BNF is the standard go-to book for evidence-based prescribing. It gives the doses, interactions and indications for all medicines and it also self-updates.

2. SDCEP, £Free

The SDCEP is the bible of frontline dental primary care providers. This app gives clear, evidence-based guidance on the pharmacological management of various dental conditions.

3. Easy IOTN, £Free

This app from the British Orthodontic Society offers a clinical index which can be used when you suspect that a patient needs an orthodontic referral. It is extremely simple to use and consists of two components - dental health and aesthetics.

4. Eye Chart HD, £Free

Eye ChartHD is useful for the assessment of visual activity. It is a pocket vision screener with randomised charts.

5. E-logbook, £Free

A very useful app to register all surgical cases. It can also form the basis for any dental surgical portfolio.

6. Visual Anatomy Lite, £Free

This app provides interactive anatomy references, complete with 3D rotational models. It provides a good basic anatomy outline for all your needs in the head and neck region.

7. BACD, £Free

BACD allows users to stay to stay up-to-date with the latest academy news. It can also be used to book onto regional meetings and provides details about national conferences.


8. SleepBot, £Free

A dental student's timetable is jam-packed with lectures, practicals, clinics and more! Your sleep is essential when it comes to ensuring you can function efficiently each day. Sleepbot is a free app that keeps tabs of how long you are sleeping for and tells you if you're not getting enough sleep. It also makes use of a clever alarm mechanism  that claims to wake you up gradually so that by the time you have to get out of bed, you are fully awake.

9. MyFitnessPal, £Free

Sometimes you get so busy with your studies that you forget about yourself! Keeping your mind and body healthy is important. This app is great for helping you to keep track of your exercise and nutrition. A healthy diet and regular exercise can reduce stress and helps your brain and body function more efficiently.

10. Brush DJ, £Free

Our final app is one that you can recommend to patients! This award-winning app was developed by UK dentist Ben Underwood and is suitable for use by all ages. The toothbrush timer app plays 2 minutes of music from your device, the cloud or streaming service - to make toothbrushing for an effective length of time fun!

This guide was written by Fahad Alawsi, a DF1 in Leeds and a Dental Core Trainee in Maxillofacial Surgery in Bradford and Jasmine Lobo, 4th year student at Leeds Dental School.

The views expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the authors.