UIC Nursing AROUND THE STATE
(left) Peggi White, MS ’89, UIC Nursing-Urbana simulation lab coordinator, and her son, Beau Barber, pose for a photo after running a 5K together, one year after Barber’s surgery. Both medaled in their age divisions. (top) Beau Barber recovers in the hospital after a surgery to remove a benign tumor. His experience after surgery inspired Peggi White’s idea for a better wound drain device.
URBANA
Faculty member wins seed money for wound drain device After her son’s surgery, Peggi White, MS ’89, FNP-BC, CADC, MAC, who graduated from the Peoria campus, worked to develop an innovative wound drain holder. After surgery to remove a golf ball-sized tumor from under his tongue, Peggi White’s oldest son, Beau Barber, had a Jackson-Pratt drain inserted in his neck to help remove excess fluid. Barber noticed whenever his gown moved—a frequent occurrence—it pulled at the drain and caused strain on the insertion point. “Mom, there has to be a better system for this,” White recalls her son saying. White agreed. But even though she had ideas for a less cumbersome drain holder, she had “no way to follow up on them,” she says. Then, while working as simulation lab coordinator at UIC Nursing in Urbana, a representative from the mechanical engineering department inquired if White had any ideas for capstone senior projects. It was the opportunity she’d been seeking. White soon began working on a design for a wound drain holder with four engineering students:
Faisal AlSayed, Jacey Lambert, Poom Prasopsukh and Amol Rairikar. Together, they developed a protoype of the device. With assistance from UIC’s Office of Technology Management, White received a provisional patent at the end of last year. She also recently won a grant through the 2021 Chancellor’s Translational Research Initiative to advance her research toward commercialization. The innovation grant, worth up to $25,000, will allow her to reproduce the prototype and possibly pursue a clinical trial. Barber’s tumor was benign, and he is now a doctoral student in agricultural and biological engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “Even though my son has fully recovered, this collaboration will hopefully result in a product that will improve the comfort of wound drains for many more individuals,” White says.
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