Bio Break: Thanksgiving Traditions and Lessons for Medical Devices
In this episode of Bio Break, StarFish Medical experts Joris van der Heijden and Nick Allan celebrate Thanksgiving by sharing a heartwarming and hilarious family tradition: preparing the perfect turkey. Through this tale of generations working together to create the iconic holiday meal, they uncover a surprising lesson that applies to medical device development and procedural design.
Nick recounts a story from his family’s Thanksgiving tradition, where four generations worked together to prepare a turkey, following a long-passed-down method involving a pot of water to keep the turkey moist. However, this year’s preparation revealed a surprising twist—the tradition originated not from culinary precision but from a practical fix for an old, unsteady stove! This discovery sparks an insightful discussion about the importance of understanding why each step in a process exists, whether in cooking or designing medical devices.
The story transitions into a valuable takeaway: in medical device development, blindly following procedures without questioning their purpose can lead to inefficiencies or errors. Much like uncovering the reason behind the family’s turkey tradition, developers must critically evaluate instructions for use (IFUs) and procedures to ensure each step serves a meaningful purpose.
Key insights from the episode include:
- Traditions and Processes: The importance of understanding the origins and reasoning behind longstanding methods.
- Critical Thinking: Always question procedural steps to identify and remove outdated or unnecessary instructions.
- Practical Application: Applying these lessons to medical device development ensures efficiency, precision, and safety in design and operation.
This Bio Break episode offers a lighthearted yet meaningful look at how family traditions can teach us about innovation and critical thinking. It’s perfect for medical device developers, healthcare innovators, and anyone who loves combining life lessons with professional insights.
Thanksgiving Traditions and Lessons for Medical Devices
Related Resources
In this episode of Bio Break, Nick and Joris dive into one of the most astonishing—and real—medical innovations we’ve ever come across: osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis. Or, as Nick quickly dubs it, “tooth in eye surgery.”
In this episode of Bio Break, Nick Allan and Joris van der Heijden explore a critical but often overlooked topic in healthcare innovation: prevention. While most conversations about medical devices revolve around treatment, the duo shifts the focus to technologies that help people avoid hospitalization altogether. Preventive medical devices and diagnostic tools are quietly transforming healthcare by catching diseases earlier and reducing the need for invasive procedures.
In this episode of Bio Break, Nick shares one of his favorite discoveries in the world of infectious disease research — the groundbreaking discovery of Helicobacter pylori and its role in causing peptic ulcers. This fascinating story showcases how persistence, scientific curiosity, and innovative thinking can lead to discoveries that reshape medical science.
Nick and Joris tackle a question many tech and health enthusiasts have wondered for years: Where is my cortisol-sensing smartwatch? Nick shares a nostalgic story of reading about futuristic wearable technology in Popular Mechanics as a child — devices that would one day monitor biomarkers like cortisol to track stress and overall health. Now, decades later, he and Joris break down why such a wearable device still hasn’t become a reality.