WWU engineering team patents new surgical device

Every summer, WWU Associate Professor of Engineering Sura Al-Qudah returns to her home country of Jordan and spends the long, warm nights sitting out on the patio to catch up with her siblings about their personal and professional lives. It was on one of these nights in 2019, watching the sun dip below the horizon, that her brother began describing his day in the office to Al-Qudah, lamenting the challenges of fixing a broken leg.

An orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Ala Al-Qudah spends hours in the operating room repairing bones. Some of the most common injuries he performs surgery on are tibias or fibulas — the bones of the lower leg. These are also some of the most difficult bones to operate on because repairing them requires a free-hand method to affix surgical nails to the bone, an inaccurate and time-consuming process.

“My brother is very engineering-oriented, so he always has ideas on how to improve the surgical tools he works with,” she said. “He told me, ‘There should be a simple yet effective solution for this.’”

In order to fix a broken tibia or fibula, surgeons use an intramedullary nail, also known as a tibia nail, to stabilize the fracture. These nails are made of titanium and are inserted into the leg before being affixed to the bone with screws, but surgeons can have a hard time locating the nail’s pilot holes, especially in the distal side — the side farthest from the surgical site — of the leg.

This is due in part because of the device used to locate these holes: a long, thin rod that’s inserted into the leg. Issues with the current process arise thanks to the lever arm principle, which states that the further away a point is from the leverage point, the more it deviates with pressure.

Another issue the current method of placing distal screws often fails to account for is nail deformation during insertion, which results in misalignment and inaccurate screw targeting. Surgeons use X-ray images to confirm the nail and screw’s positioning is correct, but numerous exposures can put nurses and doctors at risk for radiation poisoning, a condition that can cause vomiting, skin and hair loss or even cancer.  

Sura Al-Qudah’s invention was designed to address these issues. 

The Distal-Screw Guiding System for Interlocking Intramedullary Nail Implants is shaped like a crescent moon with two thin, oval arms on each side.  The curved center piece acts as the guiding jig of the device. Each arm has two holes which allows for a locating pin to be inserted. This locating pin is used to align the holes in the tibia nail for proper insertion into the leg. The Guiding System’s design allows for higher accuracy and repeatability, a lower learning curve, faster operating time and a reduction in the overall cost of surgery. 

Sura Al-Qudah began the initial design process in winter 2020 with her then-student Levi Smith, who graduated with a degree in manufacturing engineering in fall 2020. Shortly after Smith joined the project, the team had to transition to remote work because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Smith’s case, that meant most of his research was done online from his dining room table. 

Smith spent the first days of the project researching what surgical devices were currently on the market and how the surgery is performed.

“I think I still have a folder bookmarked in my YouTube playlists of the current state of how these medical devices are installed and how they work,” he said.

Once he understood the technical process, Smith began creating design drafts. Smith remotely accessed software that allowed him to create 2D and 3D models of various design concepts, which he then sent to Sura Al-Qudah for review. 

Smith’s work was instrumental in the invention process and Smith was given a well-earned credit on the patent, Sura Al-Qudah said.

“I really insisted that his name should be on the patent because he contributed a lot to the idea of the invention,” she said.

Smith was not the only undergraduate student to contribute to the project. In total, five students worked with Sura Al-Qudah at every stage of the patent’s progress. 

After the initial computer models were completed, Sura Al-Qudah and her student team created a 3D printed version of the design which allowed them to identify any edits that needed to be made. They then built a prototype out of stainless steel, which they used to test and refine their design until they produced a final prototype that was tested on composite tibia bones as proof of concept. 

By giving students ownership of a real problem rather than a textbook-style exercise, students develop a sense of accountability over a project, Sura Al-Qudah said. 

“Engineering is about more than technical knowledge; it requires critical thinking, teamwork, resilience and the ability to navigate uncertainty,” she said. “Students were not just learners but contributors; they helped test ideas, analyze data and refine designs.”

The Al-Qudah team has successfully filed and been approved for a patent and is currently testing the Distal-Screw Guiding System and preparing for publication. The next step in the process will be to perform a market analysis and clinical trials. 

While the project may be entering its final stages, Sura Al-Qudah and her brother’s collaboration will continue. The pair is already working on another invention, though it is in early development. If they successfully achieve a provisional patent, Sura Al-Qudah will continue to recruit students to be a part of the process.

“These opportunities accelerate student’s growth,” she said. “They move from being students who complete assignments to engineers who generate solutions, defend their decisions, and contribute meaningfully to advancing the field.”

To learn more about Sura Al-Qudah’s work, or to learn more about manufacturing engineering at Western, visit https://engineeringdesign.wwu.edu/

Mikayla King (‘17) covers the College of Science and Engineering and Woodring College of Education for University Communications. Reach out to her with story ideas at kingm24@wwu.edu.