A hospital has launched an urgent investigation after a patent claimed that a doctor used an iPhone as a torch during a procedure.
The woman, who had just had a miscarriage, alleges that when the examination light didn't work, the doctor asked a nurse to hold his iPhone up with the light on so that he could work from that.
In a post on Mumsnet, the woman writes: "Doc came into room to see if he could stop [the bleeding] but the examination light didn't work and (I'm really, really not making this up) another doctor was already using the torch so he had to get the nurse to hold his iPhone up with the light on and tried to work from that."
To make matters worse, the nurse was unfamiliar with the iPhone so when the light went off the doctor and nurse had "a bit of an altercation as she didn't know how to do the finger swish thing to keep turning it on".
Croydon University Hospital director of nursing Zoe Packman told the Croydon Advertiser: "First of all we want to say how sorry we are to read of such a poor experience this woman had during her last pregnancy and that she felt so unsupported when she had a miscarriage. As soon as we became aware of this posting we made contact with the woman and asked her to get in touch with us. She has now done this and we will be able to investigate her concerns fully."
There have been stories in the past about doctors using iPads and iPhones to identify illnesses, and perform life saving operations.
The University of Leeds issued Apple iPhones to medical students for access to online educational materials that replace 'unhygienic' reference manuals and record books. Yale School of Medicine is distributing the iPad 2 to every one of its students this fall, joining a trend at medical schools across the States.
Doctors are already sharing medical records on iPads with their peers, in order to discuss patient care.
Patients may even be able to cut health care costs by running blood tests off their iPhones and having the results automatically forwarded to their doctors.
In one case, a Glasgow woman has gave birth to a baby girl thanks to an iPhone application. Britain's first 'iPhone baby' was born after a four year wait using an application that measures when a woman is most fertile.
Doctors at an eye hospital in India send their diagnosis and recommendations from their iPhones.
