Johnson & Johnson surgical instruments consulting

Tom's longstanding J&J consulting on minimally invasive surgical instruments — specifically the rongeur for arthroscopic cartilage work. Tom anchors with his own torn-cartilage history. The point lands as: smaller instruments need to remain stiff, which is why you cannot just keep slimming the cross-section.

There are limits. I used to consult with a division of Johnson & Johnson that made surgical instruments. Forty years ago, when I tore the cartilage of my knee, if you had to have an orthopedic surgeon do surgery on your knee you'd be in a cast for two or three months and on crutches for about six months, because they had to lay your whole knee open. Then in the 1980s they got to what they called minimally invasive surgery — basically just make a slit on your knee, rather than opening the whole knee. They go in with very fine tools, and I used to work on some of these tools when they break. They'd go in and nibble away the cartilage. They had a little tool called a rongeur — the surgeon just goes in there like a mouse taking a bite of the cartilage, pulls out a piece, takes another bite. He doesn't have to open the whole leg. You wouldn't have to be in a cast for two months — you could be on crutches for two months and walking around two months later. I still have two torn cartilages, one in each knee, because it was such an ordeal to repair them back in the old days. They always wanted to get finer, and they do all kinds of minimally invasive surgery, because you don't have to stay at a hospital as long. It's worth a lot of money to be able to come up with instruments that can do this.

One thing is, I never design a part. I can tell what's wrong, and I give some options for what designs could be, but I don't make the final choice. One time I developed a surgical instrument consulting for Johnson & Johnson. They do laser surgery, and metal instruments can bounce the laser off and burn the patient somewhere they didn't want to burn. I came up with a surface coating that absorbed the laser light without reflecting, and we got a patent on it. If Johnson & Johnson ever got sued, I'm not an employee — I could be sued personally. I ended up writing to Johnson & Johnson asking to be held harmless. It took six months in their legal department. They finally gave me a letter saying we'll treat you as if you were an employee — my legal fees would be paid.