Thank you to everyone that visited the MezLight booth in San Francisco last week! I had such an incredible time meeting so many surgeons, residents, medical students, and other health care professionals. I can’t deny that I was a bit nervous heading into the meeting, as this was only our second booth and the first one outside of my field of transplantation, so I wasn’t sure what type of a reaction we would receive. We had so many people visit the booth, from the US and dozens of other countries. It felt like a real celebration!
The feedback we received on the MezLight was very positive and so many of you couldn’t wait to get a chance to try one out in your operating room. With MezLight’s market availability scheduled for the 2nd quarter of 2020 it won’t be long before we can offer that experience to you.
I thought it would be worth relaying some of the most consistent feedback and questions posed to us and provide some of the answers I gave at the time. The quote I heard the most was some version of “I can’t believe this doesn’t exist already.” Or perhaps more often it was posed as a question, “why doesn’t this exist already?” I love hearing that. The MezLight is really a simple solution to a problem we all suffer from – the pain of wearing the headlight, or the lack of adequate lighting if we refuse. (I certainly didn’t have to convince anyone of the challenges of wearing the headlight, and the beating our bodies and spines take during a career in surgery.) I love simple solutions, the kind that seem obvious once you come up with them. I am not certain why this exact lighting solution does not exist yet, but I can say that from a surgeon’s perspective it should have been invented decades ago! There are lights that mount to our retractors or retractors that are lights, but I don’t want anyone messing with my retractors because they are critical to how I operate. From my experience there is plenty of room on the side rail so why not use that? My guiding principal has been that I don’t want to change how anyone operates, I just want to enhance it.
A number of people loved trying the light in our booth but asked if it would get in the way while they were operating in a real OR with a real patient. Having used it for hours in simulations, animal labs, and cadaver labs, I am confident that once you try it you will find that if it does get in your way you can quickly and easily reposition it! Just like retractors, it is important to set the light up in the right position for your needs – for instance from above for upper abdominal surgery, or below for lower abdominal surgery. Each surgeon will have his/her own style with it as we do with many of our instruments, but the learning curve will be short. But rather than me trying to convince anyone that it won’t get in the way, all I ask is that you just try it out. You will know within minutes if it can work for you.
Some people expressed concern that their heads would bump the light, making it unsterile and requiring that it be removed from the sterile field. I am confident that after using it for a short period, you will easily find ways to position the light and move it in and out of the field as you need it while rarely bumping into it (and without changing operative technique). Of course the proof will be in the pudding – and I hope you will give it a try, and let me know if I am right! In case your head does bump it, we have designed the MezLight so that a standard ultrasound probe sterile cover can be pulled over the light and the post making it sterile once again.
By far the most common input we got was “I love it! I can’t believe I have been operating this long without it! Can I get one now?” (or something like that…). In all honesty, the feedback was tremendous, and there is nothing like the MezLight available today. I am excited to get it in the hands (not on the heads) of surgeons everywhere so we can remove the burden of the headlight and operate better.
We are always happy to answer any questions or hear your suggestions so please feel free to drop us an email. Much respect to all the surgeons and medical professionals across the globe, and we look forward to helping you get lit with a MezLight!