I went to ACLS today. There were a few new protocols, and it just seems to get simpler and easier. The drugs have been reduced to Amiodarone, Atropine, Lidocaine, and Epinephrine, for almost all scenarios. I got to thinking about how the approximate 5 year period of change, is probably a really good manufacturing cycle to achieve, and how certain companies are very likely benefiting in the dollar department.

Gin and Tonic

Four decades spent
In a healthcare setting,
Algorithmic procedures
Are just predictable betting,
That change, every few years
After the latest new fangled,
Ideas and data
Are sorted and untangled.

We believe our new techniques
Are better than the old,
We get new machines
And the prior ones are sold,
To that big third world market
Across oceans and borders,
While the medical device makers
Are raking in new orders.

It's sort of a racket
One must question each new way,
I'm betting, obsolete
In two years and one day,
And then Pfifzer and Ballard
St. Jude and Medtronic,
Will be counting their millions
On the beach with Gin and Tonic.

Fibril_late;
2/19/12