Good comments Timmay.
A lot of the younger doctors are, unfortunately, being steered toward non-mechanical options here in the USA. I can only guess that the medical device community (Big Pharma) is behind that push
Yes, that is the trend. It's vexing. I would suggest that it is a combination of marketing and some physicians not having a good grasp of statistics. I consulted with two different surgeons prior to my surgery. The question came up as to how long I should expect the relatively new Resilia valve to last. They both told me about the same thing- given my age, I could probably expect about 10 years from a tissue valve. We don't have enough data for the new valve yet, so until we know, we can't suggest that it will last longer. Some forum members in my age group are told about the same thing as I was told. Yet, some members my age, and even younger, come out of their consults and report that their surgeon told them that Resilia will last them 20+ years, 25+ years and we have even seen people report they were told it should last 30+ years. Why are the numbers all over the place when surgeons talk about the same valve for the same age group?
I'm going to go down a little rabbit hole on this one, so apologies. But, physicians are just human beings. There, I said it. That may be controversial, but there it is. Human beings are subject to be influenced by marketing, some more than others. Also, some humans are very good at math and some are very bad at math, and many fall in between these two extremes. Physicians are not an exception to this.
I did not go on to medical school, but during my undergrad at UCLA, I originally intended to do so. My major was medically related and I was on the premed program. It was not required, but recommended that we take a medical statistics class. The classroom was actually located in the UCLA hospital, as over 90% of those taking the class were doctors and nurses. They got continuing education credits for taking the course.
I was stunned at the low level of the course. I would have put the level of difficulty at about 6th or 7th grade, and that may be generous.
I would have expected most to not miss even one question on the first exam, given how basic it was- but the average score was about 60%. One of the problems on the exam was the following:
"A certain surgery has a mortality rate of 5%. If 1,000 patients go through this procedure, what would be the expected mortality."
So, the instructor went over this problem in class, as it was one of the problems which many in the class got incorrect.
Some got it correct, but many did not and the answers ranged from .05 to 500. SMH. With the questions which followed from the class, it was clear that many of my classmates, and yes physicans, had real difficulty understanding conversion of percentage to decimal.
I was a bit shocked and wondered how on Earth these folks managed to pass the MCAT. Well, it turns out you don't need much math to pass the MCAT and become a physician. See link below.
“The MCAT is primarily a conceptual exam, with little actual mathematical computation.”
“You aren’t allowed to use a calculator on the MCAT, so you need to practice doing arithmetic calculations by hand.
Fortunately, the amount of calculation you’ll have to do is small.”
Fortunately? Fortunate for who? Not their future patients.
How to Survive MCAT Math Without a Calculator.
When I first saw this comic by Gary Larson, I thought that he must have been a fly on the wall in my medical statistics course.
This is not to beat up on physicians. The reality is that most people are not real strong in math. And, physicians are people.
