Interesting. If anyone else cares, a somewhat enlightening bit of Googling on the subject seems to indicate that it varies from doctor to doctor, and that the main concern is the metal interfering with electrocauterisation equipment (in the case that something goes wrong during surgery, even if it wasn't intended to be used originally) and causing burns. It's a risk mitigation thing, and it appears that some places won't budge, whereas others will have you sign a release, with further variability based on the inherent risk of the type of surgery in question.

Seriously? Any chance of a link with some more info on that?

The anchors themselves are transdermal (through the skin), not subdermal (entirely under the skin) as the headline states. The magnetic caps sit on top of the steel which is protruding outside the skin, and the iPod then sits on them.

If you look at TFA, they seem to be inert transdermal anchors with magnetic caps, so there shouldn't be any risk of pinching the tissue between them.

Also it appears the ones used in TFA are actually inert transdermal anchors with magnetic caps - in this case there's no reason to embed the actual magnets, whereas I'm assuming you got them for the whole 'extra sense' thing?

Looking at the article, I was actually thinking this would be a lot cooler with a nice watch face than an iPod. Having it just sitting there without a strap seems like a subtle but kind of interesting way to modify a fairly standard accessory.

It's fair to say that the figure is pretty damn likely to be incorrect. But I quite agree, the Forbes article should've gone one step further and done the correct calculation for the 2010 data (since, by their assertions, it seems that 2011 data is not yet fully available).

I didn't say 'instead of', but it sure as hell gives you an advantage. In my experience it's a sliding scale between ability, appearance and confidence - the more you have of one, the less you need of the others. A vast generalisation, of course, with somewhat overlapping criteria, and it breaks down at the extremes (you don't get surgeons with zero ability, nor business executives with zero confidence, for example), but not a bad rule of thumb.

A very reasonable post, although I must say I disagree with your implication that I'm 'pushing' anything. If you've looked at things from both sides and made your choice then I applaud you - it's certainly not my place to tell you how to behave. That said, I obviously think my way is the right way of doing things (hell, who doesn't?) and to that end I offer my opinion as best I can.

Thank you.