Apparently the New England Journal of Medicine was listening yesterday when I suggested to an audience in Chicago that the way to a doctor’s heart is through his smartphone. The NEJM This Week iPhone App went live this morning on iTunes and it’s worth a look.

The App offers four pages covering articles, images, audio and video. According to Toby Plewak, NEJM’s Manager of Product Development, the article page covers most everything available through the print/web version as well as all of the “online first” (early release) articles for the current week. The only articles excluded are those that can’t be delivered effectively on the iPhone.

I just listened to the NEJM This Week Audio Summary – beautiful (I know what I’ll be doing during my drives to the Texas Medical Center).

Unfortunately the App does not appear to include NEJM’s snappy Flash animations, timelines, infographics and interactive Medical Cases. We can only dream.

The medical images are cool, I might add. And beyond their educational value, I’m thinking they’ll have remarkable amusement value with my school-aged children (my fav this week: the rattlesnake bite).

And, as expected, it all renders really nicely on the iPhone.

I normally access NEJM remotely through the Texas Medical Center Library and that requires a couple of steps with WiFi or my Verizon card. I have to say that since downloading the app this morning I’ve spent more time reading NEJM than ever before. It’s simply a matter of availability. It’s remarkable what you can accomplish during 10 minutes of downtime.

For a limited time the NEJM This Week App is allowing free access. But at some point the party will be over.  Get it while it’s hot… or free.  Please feel free to comment here or send feedback to iPhone at NEJM dot org.