Bill Betten has developed medical devices for decades, but he gained a deeper understanding after hearing a doctor speak the words “brain” and “tumor.”

“It’s a little different when it’s going to be done to you,” Betten recalled today during Medical Design & Outsourcing‘s latest podcast. (Hear more from Betten as editor Chris Newmarker interviews him at DeviceTalks Minnesota, Sept. 9–10 in Minneapolis. Use the code “25OFF” to save 25% on the cost of registration.)

Betten’s tumor, fortunately, was a benign meningioma, and he’s presently four and a half months into a successful recovery from surgery. Now that he’s past the health emergency, there are insights about medical devices that he once knew that he now feels to his core.

Going back to his days at 3M, Betten had worked on MRI systems and knew how uncomfortable they could be for someone, but it was another matter to feel how scary it could be himself. As a veteran medical device product developer based in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Betten knew how uncomfortable all the patient monitors could be while recovering in a hospital, but it was another matter to suffer from lack of sleep amid the beeps and check-ins as the health provider monitored blood pressure, heart rate, pulse oxygen, temperature and more.

Hear more of Betten’s insights in MDO‘s latest podcast, and find out more next week at DeviceTalks Minnesota.