U of I students invent device that could save surgeons time in the operating room

Operating rooms could get safer and more efficient thanks to the ingenuity and hard work of a group of University of Idaho engineering students.

Last fall, Dr. Douglas Hiller, an orthopedic surgeon at Whitman Hospital and Medical Clinic, in Colfax, Washington, presented the U of I student team with a problem he’s struggled with for more than 35 years. C-arm X-ray machines — large, c-shaped machines that capture live images during surgeries — need to be manually positioned and re-positioned an average of 20 times during surgery, costing valuable time and exposing patients and staff to excess radiation.

“For surgeons, the C-arm is a huge distraction and cause of frustration,” Hiller said. “It’s cumbersome and difficult to move, and we end up with many more images than are needed. I’ve been thinking about this project since 1988.”

The U of I students developed a simple marker for the exact coordinates of the C-arm at the time of each X-ray. The C-arm technician can then easily capture before and after images by returning to the exact position of the first image.

Senior Hailey Faith serves as project manager for her student group, which includes two mechanical engineers, two computer scientists and two bioengineers. The team began by interviewing Hiller and other hospital staff to learn the scope of the project and gather ideas.

“We got to go to the operating room, put scrubs and lead vests on and learn how the C-arm works,” said Faith, who is headed to Tulane University for graduate school in the fall. “That gave us perspective and ideas about how to attack the problem.”

The U of I team spent the academic year devising their solution.

“We developed a retrofitted guidance system,” Faith said. “The technician can see the coordinates in the real-time image and save them in the system. That makes it easy to direct the C-Arm back to the original position.”

Faith’s team is one of more than three dozen that presented their capstone experience projects at Engineering Design Expo on the Moscow campus. They showed off their scale model of the C-Arm that they used for small-scale testing and discussed the reviews they’ve received from Hiller and other professionals.

“We did testing with an X-ray operator and the feedback was really positive,” Faith said. “We’ve also gotten good reactions at business pitch competitions, and I think we’ll be exploring a patent for it.”

If the team can acquire a patent for their device, the next step would be approval from the Food and Drug Administration, which could take years. But Hiller believes the students’ work could eventually lead to more efficient and effective operations.

“The students were absolutely terrific,” Hiller said. “They were very thoughtful and thorough, and they were really good about communication. The U of I professors have been wonderful to work with, too. It’s been a great experience.”