CODE IV runs gear reviews in the Gear section of the newsletter and on this site. Some of the links in those reviews are affiliate links, which means we earn a small commission if you buy something through them. Here’s how that actually works.
We only review gear we’d carry on shift
The bar is simple. If a piece of gear wouldn’t survive a bad night in the back of a rig or a code on a med-surg floor, it doesn’t make the newsletter. No vendor pitches us a product and gets a review out of it. We start with the question, what should a working clinician actually buy this year, and we work backward from there.
That means most products that get marketed at us, we don’t cover. The shears with the gimmick handle. The stethoscope that costs more than your boots. The light that looks great in a demo and dies on a twelve-hour shift. We don’t write hit pieces, but we don’t pad reviews either. If a piece doesn’t belong in the newsletter, it doesn’t go in the newsletter.
Editorial independence
No vendor reads a review before it ships. No vendor sees a draft. No vendor sees a list of competitors we’re comparing against. We don’t take payment for placement, we don’t take payment for ordering, and we don’t take payment to leave a competitor out of a roundup.
Sponsorships, when they exist, sit in their own labeled slot in the newsletter. They never blur into editorial coverage. When a brand pays, it says so in the byline. When a brand doesn’t, it doesn’t.
How the testing happens
Reviewed gear goes on shift. Real shifts. Multiple shifts. We buy most of what we test, the same way you would, through the vendors any clinician can reach. When a vendor sends a sample, we say so in the disclosure note on that specific item, and that sample doesn’t change whether the review is positive or negative.
The point is not lab benchmarks. The point is, does this thing work at three in the morning, with cold hands, in someone else’s rig, when you’re tired and the patient is sicker than the dispatch said.
How we get paid
When you click an affiliate link in a CODE IV review and buy the product, the vendor pays us a small commission. Usually three to ten percent. The price you pay is the same as if you walked in off the street. The commission helps keep the newsletter free.
We’ll put up an annual transparency report once there’s a meaningful number to report. Until then, you’re reading a brand-new newsletter funded out of pocket and a few sponsorships, with affiliate revenue still in its early days.
Questions, corrections, complaints
If something in a review reads off, if a product changed and we missed it, or if you have something to add about a piece of gear we covered, write in. We update reviews when reality shifts, and we’d rather hear from a clinician on shift than wait until the next time we’re wrong about something in print.
Reach us at partners@codeiv.co for review requests, or tips@codeiv.co if a piece of gear we covered breaks bad on you.