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From behind the shield

Schulte, St. Edmond grad, designs new device to help protect against COVID-19

-Submitted photo
Dr. Thomas Schulte, a 1996 St. Edmond graduate, helped design the Intubation Shield, a new protective shield that will help protect healthcare workers from coronavirus during surgeries. Schulte is the associate professor of anesthesiology and the anesthesiology director of perioperative services at Nebraska Medical Center.

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of stories on Fort Dodge natives working to fight the coronavirus around the United States.

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OMAHA — Dr. Thomas Schulte is already doing his part to help during the current pandemic, but he wanted to do even more.

Schulte, a 1996 graduate of St. Edmond, designed a special new protective barrier alongside colleague Dr. Michael Ash in less than two weeks to help protect health care workers from contagions and other contaminants during intubation procedures.

The two inventors, in collaboration with Scott Nepper at Design Plastics, Inc., came together to create the device. They wanted to find a way to help offset the widespread shortages of personal protective equipment facing healthcare workers, while also improving upon previous versions of the product currently in use.

Dr. Thomas Schulte a 1996 graduate of St. Edmond High School, esigned a special new protective barrier alongside colleague Dr. Michael Ash in less than two weeks to help protect health care workers from contagions and other contaminants during intubation procedures.

Schulte is the associate professor of anesthesiology and the anesthesiology director of perioperative services at Nebraska Medical Center.

“There was a picture of a Chinese doctor that made a square box that hit the internet,” Schulte said. “The idea was right — protect the anesthesiologist — but the box was bulky and rigid. A physician at UNMC, Dr. Michael Ash, called me up and wanted to brainstorm about a new ‘box.’

“He had a friend that had a plastic molding business that could develop some prototypes for us. That’s where we came up with our design. We wanted more of a trapezoid shape to fit on the operating room table around the patient’s head, but also develop a design that we could store. Our model does collapse, so it can be stored easily and cleaned when not in use.”

The Intubation Shield looks like a four-sided box made of a clear, lightweight plastic. It has ports so a healthcare professional can access the patient. It acts as a barrier to any pathogens a patient might express as a physician installs a tube down a patient’s throat and into the lungs. The tube provides an uninterrupted air supply for patients that struggle to breathe, including those suffering the more severe symptoms of COVID-19.

“We have the two big holes on the side where you place your arms through it,” Schulte said. “There is a small hemisphere where we connect the anesthesia circuit through.

“We did this entire process in under 10 days, from design, production to press release. This is probably because we knew the urgency of the need for a protecting device, as well as some hard-working team members.”

For Schulte and his colleagues, this is the latest in a number of events that have hit the area. In 2014, the National Biocontainment Unit that housed Ebola patients was located in Omaha.

“We have a lot of policies and procedures in place for infectious diseases,” he said. “One novelty of this virus is how you can be a carrier, be asymptomatic, yet infect others. That’s another big reason we knew we needed these boxes. The operations we were still performing, we wanted to protect all anesthesia professionals from the possibility of an asymptomatic carrier of the coronavirus.

“When an anesthesiologist induces general anesthesia, it is not uncommon for patients to cough, and the anesthesia professional will often take over ventilation for the patient. Both of these can cause a lot of aerosolized particles in the air.

“If the patient had coronavirus, everyone in the room would probably be exposed. The box adds another layer of barrier and safety to the anesthesiologist.”

UNeMed, the technology transfer and commercialization office for the University of Nebraska Medical Center and University of Nebraska at Omaha, will ship intubation boxes to hospitals in some of the areas hardest hit by COVID-19.

After graduating from St. Edmond, Schulte earned his Bachelor of Science in chemistry at Creighton University in 2000. Following four more years of medical school at Creighton, he did his residency in anesthesiology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center before becoming part of the faculty in 2008.

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