'My Meningitis Kit' Looking for Funding
Nicholas Genes Neurology
You've heard it all before: another rite of passage is being exploited for commercial gain. It's like "Back to School" sales, or baby albums where you can place a newborn lock of hair. Parents just soak this stuff up. That seems to be the market that UK woman Liz Paul is seeking, with her new My Meningitis Kit:
Liz Paul says parents can use her hand-held device to see if their children have the life-threatening illness, meningitis.
…Liz, herself a mum of three, says the way parents react in the first few minutes of discovering the disease is crucial to a child's survival.
She said parents are currently advised to place a glass on the skin area over the rash and wait to see if it disappears – if it doesn't then the child may have the illness.
She added: "Many parents, quite understandably, panic and get confused. This device takes the uncertainty away and has a microchip which delivers recorded verbal instructions telling them what to do."
Mrs. Paul gives the interviewer her phone number ("ask for Liz" !), so that angel investors can readily call her. But we think My Meningitis Kit may lack the cache of her previous inventions — a libido stimulator, and chocolate-scented anti-craving patch.
We at Medgadget say: take your child to the doctor (or ER) if you note strong new headache, stiff neck, fever — by the time there's a rash for My Meningitis to scan, it may already be too late.
Nicholas Genes
Nicholas Genes, MD, PhD, has been with Medgadget since almost the beginning. He's now Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Mount Sinai, where in addition to patient care and teaching responsibilities, he studies EHR usability and physician uses of social media. Dr. Genes serves on the editorial boards of Emergency Physicians Monthly and Emergency Medicine Practice. More about Nick: http://nickgenes.com