Play Celebrity Jeopardy! to learn the European Medical Device Regulation

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I grouped celebrities who share a common medical treatment and ask you to classify the device using the new European Union Medical Device Regulation rules. I give the answers, you respond in the form of a question.

If you’d like to see Celebrity Jeopardy in action, watch the video of Saturday Night Live’s spoof. (warning: it’s rated PG-13)

Use these resources
If you’re unfamiliar with the EU-MDR, please see this article on the MDR “Big Picture.”otherwise use these resources to play Celebrity Jeopardy using MDR rules
The official MDRthe classification rules for this game are in Annex VIII
Use the internet for pop-culture references, and don’t take anything too seriously. Give the movie role or rock band if you don’t know a name. The point is to learn the MDR while having fun, and part of learning is embracing ambiguity and using the internet.

Practice Device Classifications

CATEGORY: HAVE A HEART
Hints are given in each category.
$100: They are known as:
  1. the host of television’s “Late Night” throughout the 80’s and 90’s
  2. the 42nd presidentof the USA
  3. the 43rd president of the USA
$200: This medical device has been implanted in the three celebrities shown.
$300: This MDR classification and rule apply to the device.
$400: This presidential candidate played the saxophone on a late-night comedy show in 1992, which is credited as changing all subsequent political strategies to reach out to younger voters.

CATEGORY: KEEP UP THE PACE
$100: They are known as:
  1. a Catholic saint
  2. a singer, knighted by the Queen of England
  3. the lead guitarist of Guns and Roses
  4. a clown on television’s The Simpsons
$200: This medical device, which was first prototyped in 1899, is implanted in the celebrities shown, and controls their heart rhythms.
$300: This MDR classification and rule apply to the device.
$400: This celebrity, one of the four shown in the photo above, had their heart stop when they overdosed on drugs, but doctors revived them with a shot of adrenaline into their chest.
$500: This MDR classification and rule apply to “Automated External Defibrillators,” or AED’s, which are publicly available devices that can revive someone without the need to shoot adrenaline into their chest.

IT’S HIP TO BE SQUARE
$100: They are known as:
$200: This medical device, which is implanted in more than 300,000 Americans each year, is implanted in all four celebrities shown.
$300: This MDR classification and rule apply to the device.
$400: This 1987 science-fiction film, about an alien that hunts humans, stared two of the celebrities, before they both were elected as state governors.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
$100: They are known as:
$200: Both celebrities became deaf as children but obtained limited hearing thanks to this medical implant that converts sound to electrical signals sent to their nervous system.
$300: This MDR classification and rule apply to the device.
$400: This 1977 documentary film profiled one of these celebrities and the future governor of California as they trained for “Mr. Olympia,” and led to both of them starting in action films in the 1980’s.

HELLO
YOUR DONATION SAVED MY LIFE
PREPARE TO LIVE
$100: They are known as:
$200: All received this general type of medical treatment, using a donation from another person.
$300: This MDR classification and rule apply to the device that transported the donations to the operating rooms of the celebrities shown.
$400: This celebrity, pictured above, lost the election for governor of California to Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2003.

BABY GOT BACK
$100: They are known as:
  1. a star of the 1987 film “Dirty Dancing,” whose parents were told, “No one puts Baby in a corner!”
  2. an Oscar-winning actor and star of the films Ocean’s 11, Batman, and Syriana who was 1997’s People Magazine “Sexiest Man Alive”
$200: Both celebrities had chronic pain for this part of the human body (see the hint).
$300: This MDR classification and rule apply to the dancer’s implant, a total disc replacement.
$400: This MDR classification and rule apply to the actors implants, permanent fusion devices
Please consider this: Classification is a first step for the MDR and will impact the amount of work you need to do over the subsequent years. These two devices seem similar but have different classifications based on a nuance in terminology that could easily be overlooked by a single person or department. In this case they call a fusion device a “wedge,” which is unclear because not all fusion devices are shaped like wedges. Nuances like this are why I encourage using diverse teams to make decisions throughout the MDR.
Also please consider this: George Clooney is famous, wealthy, and, according to People Magazine, the sexiest man alive, yet after he broke his back he suffered depression and contemplated suicided. Our work matters in the lives of others.
$600: This 1978 science-fiction film about tomatoes that become sentient and revolt against humanity was the first movie role for the academy-award winning star of Syriana, Batman, and Ocean’s Eleven.

FINAL JEOPARDY
Bet as much as you’d like; it’s win or loose with Final Jeopardy. Make sure you respond to the answer in the form of a question, like “Who was _____?”
Answer:
This company used industrial-grade silicone instead of medical-grade silicone for breast implants, creating pain and suffering for thousands of patients and a lifetime of health risks for the 400,000 people who received the implants, and was a major reason for the new medical device regulations.

There’s a lot more to MDR. If you’d like to learn more, or work with a training company or consultant, please consider the resources below.
OFFICIAL REGULATIONS
PRIVATE COMPANY SUMMARIES

CONSULTING & TRAINING

This is my opinion.

As a society we’re learning that healthcare should improve. You can help.

For example, consider the spine implants and cardiovascular implants of the celebrities shown. They have access to the any healthcare money can buy, yet are still subject to the same risks as billions of people on the planet who hope our healthcare companies and providers are informed and ethical.

But, spine implant companies are often the subject of lawsuits and federal investigations for conflicts of interests when doctors advise patients but are paid by medical device companies that receive revenue from the procedures.

Similarly, For example, Cardiovascular stents are implanted in millions of people each year, including David Letterman, Bill Clinton, and George Bush, but have been criticized as often being an unnecessary procedure, even for the president, and by the president’s surgeon who implanted the stent.

This is a problem globally. 400,000 people received toxic implants from Europe, and in the United States 80,000 – 240,000 people die from healthcare errors each year, and globally 5 million people die each year from low-quality healthcare. The MDR is a step towards data-driven decisions in healthcare that’s less influenced by marketing and false views. Learn more in my MDR blogs about reducing risk as far as possible.

As professionals, we can help society by understanding regulations like the MDR that intended to protect people, practicing leadership skills that let us influence our organizations, and letting our elected officials know that healthcare safety and cost-effectiveness is important to us.

Thank you for reading.

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