Innovation is in the air Hazem Fallouh

Innovation is in the air

Hazem Fallouh

Most of us get to experience the power of healthcare innovation during our day-to-day job over the years. But more recently, we as human beings felt the triumph of innovation, like never before, through a two-dose jab to liberate us from the shackles of the worst pandemic in a century.

The speed of implementing this innovation was unprecedented and continues to beg the question about the responsibility and the safety of implementing the vaccine so soon. On the other hand, it was not soon enough for my friend and Cardiothoracic Surgeon Jitendra Rathood and many million others.

These were my thoughts when I was waiting my 15 minutes having had my third booster dose in the basement of the old building of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, in Birmingham, on a rainy autumn morning.

The rain didn’t bother me much as I had a trip to look forward to soon, to Barcelona EACTS, after nearly two years of commuting by car only.

While waiting, I turned on my laptop and here is an email from Hunaid Vohra and Simon Kendall, the Chairmen of our spanking new SCTS Innovation Sub-Committee, of which I am a member commenting, on a piece of work I did for the sub-committee.

Innovation does feel finally right at the heart of our beloved SCTS with this new innovation sub-committee. We have had three meetings so far and fellow members are talking about robotics, minimally invasive cardiac surgery, intellectual property, new devices, and technologies, etc. Simon and Narain from the executives set the scene for a very supportive and a laissez-faire approach. This environment has encouraged all twenty-two members to share their aspirations passionately in creating, developing and disseminating new innovative ideas into our speciality. The training in innovation was a major feature in the discussion and surely the importance of responsible cost-effective approach of implementing innovation was not overlooked.

Having been involved in innovation for nearly two decades now, I became familiar with Rogers Bells curve which looks at the distribution of population based on their tendency to adopt innovation. The shape of the distribution curve varies based on the socioeconomic and educational background of the group. I always thought it is easy to place me along this curve but as time went on, I found myself sliding rightward up the curve in the direction towards the majority; I used to make sure I had the latest iphone money can buy. Now I am still quite happy with my iphone 7 (2017 release).

The intriguing question for me is what the shape of this curve would be like in a group of cardiothoracic surgeons. We are a naturally adventurous risk-taking bunch to dare doing the job in the first place so you would expect a lot of innovators and early adopters, on the other hand we thrive on familiarity and repetitiveness to reach excellence and therefore we will be more resistant to change. I concluded that exactly this contradiction makes us extraordinarily ordinary ... like the masses. Some thrive on the perfection and safety of the old, well established, tried and tested safe lobectomy, thoracotomy, sternotomy 1+2 grafts and others crave for the mini mitral, robotic uniportal segmentectomies etc.

Wherever we are individually on this graph below, sitting on the innovation subcommittee gives the impression that our speciality in the country could be moving confidently and safely into the twenty first

“Innovation does feel finally right at the heart of our beloved SCTS with this new innovation sub-committee. We had three meetings so far and fellow members are talking about robotics, minimally invasive cardiac surgery, intellectual property, new devices, and technologies. ”

century. However, the success of this subcommittee will be judged based on its ability to engage with wider member base.

Ten minutes have passed since my state-of-the-art 2020 vaccine, accurately announces the massive clock laid on an old metal chair that stood the test of time and could have supported the weights of pioneering surgeons at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital from the last century who have long passed.

Five minutes to go and time for one more email. It read Congratulations, your submission has been selected for the finals at the Techno-College Innovation Award at the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiothoracic Surgery in Barcelona. This is an idea for a device to predict the development of cardiac tamponade following cardiac surgery I had over a decade since I was a trainee struggling to decide whether to drag my boss out of bed to explore the patient in the middle of the night or not, risking having to ask the nurse to call him a couple of hours later when I had to open the chest in ITU following arrest. A problem I have no doubt my boss had as a trainee four decades ago and our trainees would still have to this day. I clenched my fist triumphantly which triggered the pain off the jab higher in my arm. It is a great opportunity that I have an international platform to share the solution to a problem in cardiac surgery older than the chair holding the clock in front of me and maybe this could be the jab against a problem all the current technological innovations have failed to eradicate.

I walk out of the vaccination centre at the old Queen Elizabeth Hospital building and travel through time via the glass link bridge into the glossy new building feeling liberated more than ever with my third jab that I was apprehensive in receiving a couple of days ago and feeling so despite less-than-optimal evidence to support it but I am grateful to have a choice.

This encounter made me realise that innovation is the destiny that define us as human beings, and we have a choice, more than ever before through the SCTS Innovation Sub-Committee to shape it. n

The clock at the QE vaccination centre