DR BRONWYN Gould is consigning her anatomy charts and models to the attic after more than 30 years of practice, but she’s far from quitting.

Rather, the Sydney GP says her work has been reinvigorated in the three months since she got an iPad and the all-encompassing anatomy app Visible Body.

“When we look at people, we have visual maps – which muscles are where, what organs are where and what nerves and arteries go where – and we often assume that the patients share some of that visible map,” she said. “But many of them don’t.”

She said Visible Body was more than a handy replacement for quaint pre-technology tools. It added perspective – literally – by showing images from different angles with clinical notes. You could then email the patient a screengrab.

“You can explain it till you’re blue in the face or pull out those plastic models or pull out the diagrams that you’ve got tucked away in the cupboard, but there’s always a bit missing,” she said.

“You just pull [the app] out, highlight the bits you’re interested in and you’re literally dissecting.”

So far she’s used Visible Body to help a 91-year-old patient who loved it, a woman about to have major surgery, and another patient unsure where his prostate gland was.       

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