While the layman might enjoy perusing their phone to gaze upon their friend’s lunches or recent trips overseas medical professionals are using their very own social media apps to help save patient’s lives. Newly developed apps such as Figure 1 are taking the guess work out of complicated medical cases.

Launched in 2013 Figure 1 allows medical professional (doctors, EMTs, nurses etc) to upload images of their various medical scans/samples/specimens to crowd-source diagnosis. Technically anyone can view the images but only medical professionals can become verified (much like celebrities and their social media pages). The idea was born from the fact that 10,000 medically related emails and texts were already being sent between doctors each day in the U.S, according to Figure 1 co-founder Dr. Joshua Landy.

Images are often heavily censored to protect patient’s privacy and are not published if deemed unnecessary. Not only does it allow professional collaboration but can be used as a teaching tool, professors often upload medical images for their students to comment and discuss to support their classes.