“Long story short: when an engineer tells you how to do anesthesia, run for the OR exit and get the heck out of Dodge.” was a quote from bookofjoe. I agree!!! Even more so, when a marketing guy says so… A ethical and knowledgeable engineer is not going to touch that with a 100 foot pole.

The problem is, engineers are not knowledgeable outside their sphere of expertise. They have about zero exposure to medicine in school, and as new hires end up parroting the company line, right, wrong, or indifferent.

As a young engineer in a medical products company many years ago, thats what I did. I had my hands full of technical problems. The marketing guy said this is the medical problem we need to solve, and this is how. Ok, so thats what we will work on.

Looking back, the claims of our device all those years ago were true in some cases, in others, it was a one tool of many to help a highly experienced doc. However, in the hands of a novice doc who might grow dependant on it, the device while not dangerous to a patients health, was a danger to their wallet.

I see some all too familiar analogies with this brainwave activity monitor and the device I worked on all those years ago. Its a marketing driven design, rather than a physiologically driven design with marketing dealing with the form and fit only. Even more so, by using a propietary algorythym to determine depth of anesthesia, it does not give one a good sense of confidence. Chances are, if the numerical process were out in the open, it could be evaluated and studied in a multitude of situations. Otoh, I’m sure they see their algorythym as a key IP strategy.

Maybe if it were an open source medical device, it might have a lot more acceptance.

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