Doctors are just like us Instagram-crazed people — they like to share photos of their work, but don't want to necessarily flood their friends' Instagram feeds with grotesque pictures of fistulas and blisters. So, Dr. Joshua Landy, M.D., cofounder of the startup mhealth, began work on an app so doctors could share photographs of medical cases in return for comments and advice, a Web 2.0 version of a second opinion.

Doctors, and anyone for that matter, can download the Figure1 app from the iTunes App Store for free. Images can then be uploaded by taking a new photograph or uploading it from a library. Patient privacy is paramount with photos being uploaded to the Internet, so faces are automatically detected and blocked out, and defining features such as tattoos can also be blurred out. Overlaid arrows can direct viewers to focus in on one part of the photograph as well.

Like Instagram, a full description of the photo and the disease can be added. Images can be shared with everyone, or only specific people, to control dissemination. To improve the accuracy of pictures that best represent a disease, users can rate the photos. "I developed Figure 1 because I wanted a safe way to share medical images with the medical community, while protecting patients' privacy," said Landy, who cofounded the app.

You can find anything from CT scans of broken ribs to X-rays of shattered jaws on the application.

Because of the ubiquity of smartphones, doctors in the developing world can easily upload photographs of their patients and obtain fast and crowd-sourced help on a proper diagnosis for a baffling case. Nonmedical professionals might also flock to the app to try to diagnose themselves, using it as a visual iOS version of WebMD.

While the app is currently avaliable in North America, it will be expanding to other countries within the coming months.

If you have a strong stomach, or if you're an interested doctor, check out the application on the iTunes App Store. An android version will be coming out soon.