About Us
About the Founder
Variety is the spice of life. After working through high school and college as a laboratory technician, billing specialist, medical receptionist, and medical assistant for her pediatrician mother, Pam attended University of Michigan, Michigan Technical University, and Northwestern University. Post graduation, she found a job in Massachusetts working on an industrial humidity sensor and manufacturing an air speed sensor for the Apache and Coast Guard helicopters. After 5 years of saving every penny, she quit her job and set off to backpack around the world. 18 months later and penniless she returned to Detroit and re-entered the workforce as a Biomedical Engineer at William Beaumont Hospital. From there, she hopped to the automotive sector and was a test engineer at Continental Teves working on brake systems and wheel speed sensors. But healthcare beckoned once again and she traded brake fluid for body fluid and is currently a Clinical Engineer with McLaren Health Care in Flint, MI.
About the Shuck Shield
After finding myself furloughed from my hospital job of 14 years due to Covid-19, I set off trying to help with the problem of PPE shortages throughout our local hospitals and nursing homes. After modifying an open source face shield to make it latex free, adding a splash of color to the headbands, and getting approval from frontline caregivers, the Shuck Shield was introduced! Drawing upon several years of working in industry as a manufacturing engineer, I developed simple jigs and assembly processes that allowed my family member volunteers to continue the assembly line when I was called back to work to help set up Detroit’s Covid field hospital. Between the 4 of us we fabricated and donated 2,000 full face shields in 2 weeks to Michigan hospitals and nursing homes that had severe shortages.
Having family in various performing arts fields steered me toward helping solve the problem of minimizing aerosol spread when playing various woodwind instruments. Clear Covid instrument shields for flutes, piccolos, clarinets, oboes, and saxophones allow unencumbered visualization of musicians' fingering while still minimizing potentially dangerous virus spread. Exhaled air escapes these woodwind instruments from all keys so just adding a bell cover does not adequately prevent virus spread. The standard face shield was then modified to seal the gaps at the top and sides and to add a self sealing instrument access port for flutes, piccolos, and saxophones. These musical instrument shields and musicians face shields offer options to the heavy, opaque fabric items that are currently on the market.
Purchase, Donate, Custom Orders
If you would like to purchase some shields for your business or to donate to another business in need please contact info@bravabiomedical.com to arrange payment and delivery. Thank you for all you do to help keep our workers safe! If you would like to place a custom order with your logo on the browband we also can help you. Because there is much extra work going into the design, fabrication, and assembly we ask for a minimum order of 30.