On Wed, 23 May 2007 13:45:42 GMT, Ryan Cousineau
wrote:

Is semi-quack engineering more or less common among medical guys than in
other enterprises?

It took two months and two visits for our last robot to be cleared for
use. At our end. Same for the one before that. The robots had to be
certified for the processes that we use them for; then we had to show
that we had the processes and personnel to run them. Doubt that a
certified lab has much room for quack engineering.

Now there are labs that have relationships that permit them to stray
later - like a local lab here in Baltimore that was a captive for a
hospital and didn't stay up to snuff. OTOH, if you are in the open
marketplace, you have to maintain marketplace recognized
certifications, and that doesn't really leave you a lot of room to run
quack engineering or quack processes. You and the machines get tested
regularly and you have to score in the upper fractions of the upper
percentile to keep the certs. Everyone does.

I'm always personally most suspicious of labs that have cozy
relationships as their predominant market. The less open the market,
IMO the less scrutiny and the more chance for drift.

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...