Earlier this month, we published Success Stories in Medical Device Innovation: SurgiLance® Safety Lancets. This is the first of a series of success stories (and more detailed, complimentary case studies) that we’ll be publishing on a regular basis in coming months.

Our inaugural success story is a brief examination of the launch of the medical device that put MediPurpose on the map: the SurgiLance® safety lancet. Check it out; you’ll hopefully find parallels to the launch of your first medical invention or the challenges you might be currently facing if you are in a pre-launch stage. (If you find them, please don’t hesitate to share them with us!).

As the co-author and co-editor of that success story and others that are in the works, I am in a privileged position to get first-person accounts of what it takes to be truly successful in business. For instance, with this success story, my research primarily consisted of a series of interviews with MediPurpose’s founder and CEO Patrick Yi.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I often find myself in awe of people like Patrick and the leadership of the Medical Device Innovation and Medical Product Distribution teams at MediPurpose. In fact, I find it invigorating to be inspired by people that demonstrate the kind of intelligence and ambition it takes to be successful in this business.

I’m also not ashamed to admit that I’m sometimes intimidated by Patrick and his team. I’m certainly humbled. Don’t get me wrong: Everybody is very nice at MediPurpose. However, my educational and professional background is in communications, not business management, healthcare, or engineering. Despite my confidence in my abilities and my track record of success in marketing and communications, I very much feel like an eager college student listening to a wise professor when I work with Patrick and his teams.

Yet, as I’ve learned more about Patrick, the more I’ve discovered that I am not that much different than him.

Like Patrick, I already had a thriving career in other industries before I started focusing on healthcare and medical. Like Patrick, I migrated into healthcare and medical because an intriguing opportunity presented itself. Moreover, like Patrick, I’ve remained—and thrived—in healthcare and medical because it’s a challenging environment that requires one to consistently put their skills—and intelligence and ambition—to a major test.

One key difference between Patrick and me is that Patrick’s pre-medical device career was in developing and marketing new businesses. Another difference, of course, is that he launched a very successful line of medical devices and a medical product company.

At times while listening to him recount the story of launching his medical device—or while crafting his story in the aforementioned success story—I realize that I’m doing much more than my job. I’m essentially getting an accelerated education in business…and arguably, an on-the-job MBA.

Think about it: What is an MBA degree? According to Wikipedia, “the core courses in the MBA program are designed to introduce students to the various areas of business such as accounting, marketing, human resources, operations management, etc.”

Now look again at the success story (or sign-up to be notified when further success stories and related case studies are published). For that matter, look at some of the blogs written by Patrick or Randy Prather or Mark Stoppenbach.

What you are looking at is an invaluable collection of content that examine those “areas of business”—but focused on medical devices and medical products, and written by true “masters” of this kind of business.

In time, this Website will become much more than a collection of blogs, case studies, promotional pages, etc. Instead, think of it as a textbook, a manual and a road map for how to get your medical device funded, developed, launched and distributed—or most simply, how to become a successful medical device entrepreneur.

There’s no tuition fee either!