Day 11

Sydney (Monday)

Today, began my BrainLAB portion of the trip, fun time is now officially over. Getting dressed in a shirt and tie with no jacket (they are more casual in Australia), I got in a cab and headed out to meet Ertan in our first meeting of the day. When the cab pulled up to the hospital, I was sure he had taken me to the wrong place, because this sure as heck looked liked someone’s house. I asked him if he had indeed taken me to the Dalrcross Private Hospital and he said: “yes, look at sign”. I looked at the house, and sure enough, there was a little sign noting the hospital name. Ok, I paid the fare and hoped out. Ertan met me there about ten minutes later and we walked inside. It really was a house that had been converted to a small (I mean, really small) hospital. I kept thinking to myself, how is it possible these people are considering a $5M purchase of medical equipment? Then I realized that this building was really just for some offices and treatment rooms, nothing major. We met with the CEO of the hospital and he pretty much let us know that it is unlikely he is going to buy our product. I tried to turn him around a little bit with some compelling arguments that have worked in the US for me, but we’ll have to see how this plays not. Not likely to happen, I my opinion. Nice guy though.
Next we went to the BrainLAB “office” outside of Sydney for a few hours of work. The office is just a two floor commercial space with storage on the bottom and four desks and employees on the top. Everyone was really nice and I was able to get a lot of work done. After that it was drinks with the local Varian manager and dinner with the leading radiation oncologist in Australia. He was a really nice guy and liked to drink as most everyone does here. Toward the end of the meal, we were all feeling pretty good and he asked my who I reported to in the US. I told him I worked under Jason Chandler, and he said: “literally or figuratively?” Hmm, how do you spell A-W-K-W-A-R-D in Australian? Everyone else laughed, though I’m pretty sure my face turned red. The only response that came to mind was: “well, I am really close with him”. Ok, good ending to the first official day of business on my trip.