Regardless of whether you have a background in medicine or you’re new to the health writing field, you should have at least one medical dictionary in your toolkit.
Luckily, gone are the days you’re required to lug around 2 kilograms worth of the likes of Mosby’s Dictionary of Medicine.
Thanks to the ever-changing world of mobile app development, medical dictionaries are available as applications that can be installed on virtually any modern smartphone.
These apps are more popular than you might think. A quick browse of both the Android and Apple App Stores reveals an overwhelming amount of dictionary-related apps focused on medicine.
Some contain the full spectrum of definitions, drug names and diseases – even journal articles – while others are limited to specific disciplines.
So how can you find the best medical dictionary apps for you?
What type of medical dictionary app do I need?
Firstly, think about the type of writing you do most.
If you write for pharmaceutical companies a lot, perhaps you only need a drug-related dictionary.
However if you write about all facets of health and medicine, an all-encompassing dictionary would be most helpful.
You might find it useful to refer to a medical dictionary in the following scenarios:
- Writing content citing medical research papers
- To accurately define a medical term
- To check spelling of a health concern or disease
- To differentiate between common diseases
- To look up a drug name.
What information will I find in a medical dictionary app?
Typically, apps for medical dictionaries include:
- Glossaries of medical terms – related to all fields of medicine
- Spell checkers
- Audio and images
- Laboratory values
- Patient care statements
- Medical abbreviations
- Symbols and units of measurement
- Immunization schedules
- Nursing diagnoses
Why use apps when I can use Google?
It’s quite likely that a lot of the information available in a medical dictionary app is probably also available via Google search – and for free at that.
But there are many reasons why having your medical dictionary information contained in an app is beneficial.
- Offline availability – if you install an app that’s available offline, you’ll be able to browse the content whenever you like – internet connection or no internet connection.
- Ease of use – apps are designed to provide a simple, easy and hassle free experience for the user.
- Save time – the information is right there – so you don’t need to trawl through half a dozen websites in order to find what you need.
- Free updates – the content should be updated regularly, so you can be confident your information is always current.
- Quality source – if you choose an app from a high-quality publisher there’s a good change it will be accurate and reliable.
- Convenience – the information is available at your fingertips, literally.
What do the best medical dictionary apps have in common?
Answering yes to most of these questions below will help to ensure you’re choosing one of the best medical dictionary apps for your needs:
- Is the medical content searchable?
- Is the dictionary available offline?
- Does the content include pharmaceuticals/drugs and therapies (ie radiotherapy, radiology)?
- Does the content include health equipment and medical devices?
- Does the content include medical abbreviations?
- Are there free updates available?
- It the app free of ads/popups?
- Is the content provided by a reputable source?
- Does the app have a good rating in the app store?
- Does the app have many thousands of downloads?
- Does it have good data compression?
- Is it available on your platform?
- Can it be configured or personalised?
Most popular medical dictionary apps
Android
Oxford Concise Medical Dictionary
- 100K downloads
- Free (in-app purchases)
- 500K downloads
- Free (in-app purchases)
iPhone
- 5 stars (5,661 ratings)
- Free (in-app purchases)
- 5 stars (27,153 downloads)
- $34.99 (USD)
A high-quality medical dictionary app is an essential component of your health writing toolkit.
Want to improve your medical writing skills?
Health Writer Hub offers a variety of medical writing courses in the following areas:
