PSST, HEY DOC Almost anything goes when salesmen descend on the OR.

This week our OR conducted a trial of video camera systems. This is otherwise known as open season for vendors. We had more salespeople in our OR yesterday than a job fair. This whole process generates a host of issues. We can only laugh.

• Satisfy the egos. First and foremost, every doctor has to be part of the process. If left out of the evaluation schedule, Dr. X will cry foul and generate a litany of nastigrams to administration. Never mind that Doctor X never uses the arthroscope and that he is vacationing in the Bahamas with his, ahem, new young associate for 2 weeks Also never mind that Doctor Y's brother is a regional manager for a competitor and, yes, Dr. Y is a paid consultant for this same company.
• Used car salesmen. Every product has its pros and cons. I love the spins vendors choose when performance is less than stellar. One video system had all the clarity of a cataract. When I quietly mention to the salesman that my glaucoma has been treated and the resolution of the monitor is brutal, I am met with excuses:
  1. You're using the wrong scope
  2. It must be the connection
  3. It worked great for the last case

I also love when a salesman extols the virtue of a product, only to tell you that "it's not available yet." One such vendor exclaimed that his scope had a variable lens, adjustable from 15 to 90 degrees so there would never be a need to change instruments. Excited about this prospect, I was next greeted with the statement, "We don't have it today." Ouch! Why did you mention it? Is this some sort of mind game?

• Musical chairs. The most inconvenient aspect of the great evaluation is the endless stream of differing products, each with their own peculiar settings and attachments to the arthroscope. Just when I figure out product A, the next case welcomes me with product B.

One system required a PhD in mechanical engineering to discern how the scope coupled to the camera. MacGyver would have had problems with this one! Another had more buttons than my TV's remote control. Every time I hit what I thought was the take picture function, I was hitting white balance. The poor patient never got to see any pictures of his surgery, but boy, was the view clear!

And lastly, one product was laden with more tech features than the Apple Store. It was iPad-compatible, Windows-compatible, Wi-Fi-compatible and electronic medical record-compatible. There was one problem it wasn't surgeon-compatible. Bill Gates couldn't figure out all the functions.

Just doing their jobs
In the end, I must concur that most vendors are truly good people, merely doing their jobs. But thank God, the sales show only happens every few years.