5 min reading time

A group member recently sent me a message I didn’t understand.

“The Florida shooting victims remind me of thousands of US patients who die every year from ‘pacing-induced heart failure’ due to bypassing the cardiac conduction system.”

Intrigued, I visited his site, http://His-pacing.org, and wrote him back.

“Terry, I am unclear how Florida is related?”

He replied, “Whether you die from gunshot or cardiac pacing that bypasses the cardiac conduction system, it results suffering and grief, but society gets excited about some preventable carnage and not others. I asked, ‘Who is accountable for peacemaking induced heart failure?’ on Twitter and got no answers.”

To which I replied, “That’s an interesting juxtaposition, Terry, and now it makes sense.

As a medical device marketer, I believe it’s all in the story.

Which will get more clicks?
• 17 dead in school shooting
• How a pacemaker may save your life

They used to say in journalism, ‘If it bleeds, it leads.’

It’s no less true in the Internet Age.”

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My question: Is it possible to have a “take care of your health, explore life-saving procedures” message that compels action?

If there is, I don’t know what it is or anyone who is doing it well.

I think slow-and-steady is the only path here. I’m thinking about smoking campaigns that span decades to curb behavior.

Is higher medical-device awareness cut from that same cloth?

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Make it a great week.

Joe Hage
Medical Devices Group Leader

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Joe Hage
🔥 Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net 🔥
By the way, THIS: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6373455964883947520 … why is health insurer eHealth supporting the National Rifle Association?

Joe Hage
🔥 Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net 🔥
Thank you, Mark Plait. I don’t understand why a health insurance company would support something that doesn’t promote health and longevity. The juxtaposition in values is too great to ignore.

I see the NRA as a marketing organization. My position says nothing about your right to gun ownership. Instead, I hope to diminish the impact of the very effective marketing campaign the NRA runs, is all.

Joe Hage
🔥 Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net 🔥
Interesting, Julie. You’re right. The vaccine producers make vaccinations urgent OR YOU’LL GET A DISEASE! Again, sensationalism in healthcare.

Slow and steady doesn’t seem to win this race nearly as effectively.

Julie Omohundro
Principal Consultant at Class Three, LLC
So many potential responses, so little time:

Tom, even better if you can work the word “spree” into your headline.

The vaccine producers seem to have it nailed….swine flu, Ebola, Zika, to name a few.

Reminds me of Nancy Singer’s wonderful presentation at a RAPS conference circa 1995, on the disparity between government regulation of medical devices, which are intended to help people, versus its regulation of guns, which are intended to kill them. Now that I think of it, I may recall that her talk was inspired by the headlines, which were all about a recent school shooting.

Mark McCarty
Regulatory Editor at Clarivate Analytics
You could say the same thing about FDA and device lag in connection with transcatheter aortic valve replacements. They would probably respond, “but the DES trauma.”

Dan Reade
AF Field Clinical Engineer at Abbott
I’m no marketing mastermind, but it seems like remarkably poor form to try and spin a school shooting into pitching a concept for a cardiac device.

Laura Jana
Penn State University’s Prevention Research Center
Interesting commentary (and replies) on the subject of guns vs pacemakers with respect to getting the public’s attention. I guess I wasn’t thinking of it purely from a “marketing a device” standpoint. Rather, my initial thought was “welcome to my world”, as I’m a pediatrician trained in hard sciences now in the business of trying to educate, engage and motivate people about often health-enhancing things like hand washing or reading books to babies (or seemingly technical medical devices!) while surrounded by amygdala-driven media stories. A favorite observation about if it bleeds it leads that I reference all the time in my talks comes from Peter Diamandis in his book Abundance: “Today’s media is competing for amygdala mindshare.” Of course when I use it I make sure my audience(s) are aware that the amygdala is the part of the brain responsible for the “fight or flight” knee-jerk/impulsive reactions known to shut down the more logical/thoughtful prefrontal cortex. 😉

Tom KraMer
President & CEO, Speaker
HEADLINE: “Cardiologist kills 37 people last year”. That’ll get ’em interested.

Mark C Adams, MBA
Medical Device Leader/Executive
There is one certain fact that I’ve determined in my decades of Cardiac and EP industry experience: if it’s not a Board certified Electrophysiologist he/she isn’t touching my pacemaker, if I needed one.
Implanting leads and a Device is one thing.
Knowing how to finesse the programs for the patients best interest and quality of life is something else.

Peter Angelopoulos, MD, MBA, FACC, FSVM
Transitioning from clinical practice to industry
Joe,
As a cardiologist with 27 years of clinical experience, I agree with Terry. Routine long-term pacing IS associated with a cardiomyopathy and heart failure. Which is why for the past 15 years I have been telling everyone that if I need a pacemaker, I will pay the extra fee for a third wire to upgrade the device to a biventricular pacemaker (meaning that it will pace both ventricles simultaneously- which is much more physiological than right ventricular pacing). However, this is by no means standard of care.

Jeffery Taylor
Orthopaedic Surgeon at Sacramento VAMC
I think your summary of the forces that drive the news cycle are insightful. Yellow, or in this case, Red Journalism attracts attention and sells advertising space. But I also think that we are better off keeping Red journalism out of the medical device marketplace of ideas as it drags the rhetoric to a very low denominator, and can backfire quickly. It is both true that medical devices save and improve the quality of uncounted lives, and that the inevitable failures of technology and practice lead to many complications and deaths as well. The calculus that clearly justifies continued promotion of medical technology does not lend itself to clear communication and understanding by either Red Journalism or the Tort Process.

Mark Plait
Senior Principal QA Expert at Mark Plait
Joe Hage other than an anti-constitution political mind set, why would you care?

Peter Angelopoulos, MD, MBA, FACC, FSVM
Transitioning from clinical practice to industry
Joe,
As a cardiologist with 27 years of clinical experience, I agree with Terry. Routine long-term pacing IS associated with a cardiomyopathy and heart failure. Which is why for the past 15 years I have been telling everyone that if I need a pacemaker, I will pay the extra fee for a third wire to upgrade the device to a biventricular pacemaker (meaning that it will pace both ventricles simultaneously- which is much more physiological than right ventricular pacing). However, this is by no means standard of care.

Bob Freytag
President at Introworks, Inc.
Sensationalism always gets more clicks because we’re trained to look for it. A specific medical condition is hard to relate to until you or some you close to you is affected by it. Everyone can relate to a school shooting, we’ve all been in school. Go for the commonly understood narrative, “Don’t die sooner than you need to.” I like Tom’s angle and I don’t want to be that cardiologist.

Chris Bethune
President of.. C.J.Sales of Florida Inc.
Well stated!

Mark Plait
Senior Principal QA Expert at Mark Plait
But with the very real need for people of all races and religious beliefs in need to protect themselves against the violence especially seen in large metropolitan areas where understaffed police departments cannot in a million years make it to a crime in progress in
time to stop it, I would suggest that promoting the carrying of the means to protect oneself or loved ones against death or serious bodily injury IS promoting health and longevity.