Shayla Davis, BSN, RN, CCRN

Junior Year Nurse Anesthesia student, Fitzpatrick College of Nursing/Prospect Medical Holdings – Crozer Keystone Health System
Former PICU nurse at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

April 6, 2020

Three nurse anesthesia students, Emily Hylton, Lucas Halliday and Shayla Davis, are part of a team with the College of Engineering  which is quickly developing a prototype for a low-cost ventilator for which there is an urgent need during the surge of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Emily (Hylton) and I wanted to help with the COVID- 19 crisis and reached out to Jodie (program director Dr. Jodie Szlachta) to see if we could do something. She forwarded this opportunity to us.

We have been giving advice on patient aspects of the ventilator. This includes common ventilator settings, normal PIPs [peak inspiratory pressures] and tidal volumes for an adult patient, and we helped trouble shoot things such as spontaneous patient breathing.

It's hard as a capable ICU nurse not to feel guilty at a time like this when you know help is needed. With our current online workload in the anesthesia program it's hard to work even flex, but this project gives us a way to help the front lines during this crisis.