Harvard Medical School encourages its students to take advantage of the growing number of mobile medical apps. While the school does not distribute devices to its students, they are instructed to bring their favorite devices to campus and HMS maintains licenses for apps that might be useful to its students.

So which apps are most popular with HMS students? The school's CIO just conducted a survey to find out.

The MyCourse Learning Management System where med students can access their course materials online also sports a tab for mobile applications students can download--many now for the iPad. Here are the top five mobile apps for Harvard Medical School students according to Chief Information Officer of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center as well as CIO and Dean for Technology at Harvard Medical School, Dr John Halamka:

Dynamed - Students and physicians can use this clinical reference tool created by physicians for point-of-care situations

Unbound Medicine uCentral - This apps serves as a portal bringing popular medical publications to students' iPad with the tap of the screen. The app includes 5 Minute Clinical Consult, A to Z Drug Facts, Drug Interaction Facts, and others.

VisualDx Mobile - VisualDx provides physician-reviewed clinical information with thousands of medical images showing the variation of disease presentation through age, stage, and skin type.

Epocrates Essentials - The app is an all-in-one mobile guide to drugs and disease with an integrated disease database with conditions, plus over-the-counter medications and hundreds of diagnostic and laboratory tests.

iRadiology - A learning tool for medical students and residents, iRadiology provides quick reviews of classic radiology cases and images.

Interestingly, when HMS surveyed its students in 2008, the web version of VisualDx was among the most popular tools access via the MyCourse Learning Management System.

Halamka plans to release more info from his survey of Harvard Medical School students soon, read more at his blog.