War Stories from a medical device career.

As if seeing people with bad odds on operating tables wasn't enough to encourage a person to stay healthy,

I attended an industry conference a couple months ago, and heard a very distinguished gentleman named Mark Kroll speak. Mark holds the record for patents among Minnesotans and the medical device industry as a whole, with approximately 290 patents to date. Many of his career efforts have been in the Pacemaker realm. His lunchtime lecture was called "War Stories from a Medical Device Career." A fair amount of it was humorous and light hearted, but it was also informational and did take a few very serious turns.

One of those topics was disease diagnosis. He started by mentioning a fact that all Americans should be aware of. "The first symptom of Coronary Artery Disease in about 50% of the population...is death."

Read that again.

That is bad news for us, but good news for health insurance companies. Because if you die, all that money you contributed to health insurance is theirs to keep! So his point was that "Your Death is the Cheapest Therapy" If you die suddenly, you will never live to an old age and have 8 different prescription drugs to take a day, and get cancer. But let's say you get a Calcium CT scan (HIS suggestion for the best preventative diagnosis today) and your heart is full of calcified blockages? Then you can get blood thinner medication, coronary artery bypasses, and drug coated stents! All that stuff is expensive though, and health insurance gets to help pay. Simple.

So according to Mark, the best thing to date that can diagnose deadly heart disease is something that health insurance companies DO NOT WANT TO PAY FOR.

Life insurance companies will....that is, if you have a big enough policy.

Another example Mark gave: Pacemakers used to only have a few years of life because they used Mercury batteries. When Lithium Ion batteries showed up, the battery life jumped up to 7 years, and there was a belief that improvements could yield a battery with a life of 25 years or more. But who didn't want pacemakers that last 30 years? DOCTORS. They make money from implanting pacemakers, and physicians want repeat customers. Expect today's newest pacemaker to last 10 years. Planned obsolescence---it's not only the automotive & electronics industry.

Today in America, 60% of all bankruptcies are not filed by spendthrifts, but by people who get sick or injured, and put themselves into major debt after being dropped by their insurance.

Heath Insurance companies, medical device manufacturers, pharmaceutical & biotech companies, and Hospitals. They're (actually we're) all after your savings. The wealth you're saving over a lifetime in hopes of passing on to your children to live a better standard of life? We want that. Keep eating fatty/excess food, keep smoking, keep heavily drinking, doing what everyone else is doing..... and we'll get it. The people working at those big medical device companies, pharmaceutical companies....are they really committed to your health and your cure? No. the people making the decisions are focused on developing things that will MAKE MONEY. That's how you run and sustain a business. Simple.

In closing, the best cure for disease........is not blockbuster drugs or new medical device breakthroughs. It's PREVENTION. A healthy lifestyle. Regular checkups. Simple.

I am Scared.

I was brought to tears last weekend. (and really every time I think about this)

I was visiting my home and my Grandparents. My namesake grandfather was diagnosed with metastasized melanoma in February, and has 3 tumors.

He refused anti-cancer medication. At the time, he felt fine, he had a good quality of life, he enjoys eating, and medication would surely change that. He's 89, and for most people, I guess that's what most people would expect. He's had a very full life, has lived his life on his own accord, has 10 grandchildren.

What just tears me apart is that he and my grandmother (age 94) are otherwise very healthy, independant, and very in love with each other. They just became Great-Grandparents.

They are my heroes above all others.

I've felt for some time that I identify with my grandfather more than anyone in my entire family. I grew up a stone's throw away from his house, and he is just as much of a father to me as my own father is. I recall spending many nights with him getting help on my schoolwork when I was a child, and in doing so passed on to me a love for science and mathematics.

He also has held his core values dear. He was recruited to IBM in Chicago as a young engineer --he was truely one of the original whiz kids there-- but when they wanted him to learn how to play golf and dress up, he sold his tuxedo and returned to the farm. He never looked back after choosing freedom over fortune.

I've had deaths in my family, but this is different. Never has anyone been this close to me. Last week was the second time I saw tears come from my fathers eyes.

I am scared.