Building a better heart valve
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Because interventional cardiologists are performing the procedure (not surgeons, at least initially) this hurts the cardiac surgeons' revenue (and could ultimately replace open surgery - making the expertise that surgeons have achieved over decades become redundant, thus lowering their power, prestige and influence).
Of course, when surgeons start training in these techniques, they'll start swearing by them (whilst stating emphatically that they're the only doctors that should be doing them).
This is an enormous problem across medicine - specialists (especially surgeons) not wanting to lose turf to other less invasive options, which harms patient care across the board - see also intracranial aneurysm treatment (surgical clipping vs endovascular treatment), abdominal aortic aneurysm treatment (open surgery vs. endovascular), fibroid treatment (hysterectomy vs. minimally invasive options) and oncology treatments (surgery and radiotherapy vs. interventional minimally invasive procedures).
Always get a second (and third) opinion and look for alternatives before agreeing to have an invasive surgery - that's not an endorsement of new age alternative BS though, do your own research.
So far is there a solution which is not to let nature/market decide what is available ?
Doctors are in a weird position. They're rightly reluctant to change (like aerospace) because they can't risk death. They're a black box, no patient can contradict, they're saviors. Their word is often final. I'd love to trust them fully, but I've seen too many errors (innocent or greedy) to not think about how we could avoid the problem (similar to self-driven cars, manufacturers and injuries).
ps: non invasive surgery is trendy though now, this is becoming a public idea, in these economically troubled days, cheaper and safer medical options will be loved.
One way to alleviate this type of thing is to pay doctors a flat rate salary, adjusted according to patient outcome (ie. significant improvement in outcomes through a novel innovation - you get a percentage raise). Paying per procedure is part of the intrinsic problem.
The system also needs to change, like many systems. Innovation and capability needs to be valued over seniority. Hard to do in the current healthcare model though (and no doubt there will always be those who figure out a way to game any system).
> It is not for the fainthearted.