Deb Schorr carefully peeled off the last pair of gloves and dropped them into a trash can atop other pieces of personal protective equipment.
“That was time consuming,” Schorr said of the donning and doffing exercise.
Schorr, district director for U.S. Rep. Mike Flood’s office, was one of about a dozen congressional staffers who toured the Davis Global Center on the UNMC campus.
The tour introduced staffers to iEXCEL with visits to the holographic theater and simulation classrooms. In the Global Center for Health Security, on the ground level of the building, the group walked through the quarantine unit and got an up-close look at ISTARI (Isolation System for Treatment and Agile Response for high-risk Infection) devices.
Staff members from the Center for Sustainment of Trauma and Readiness Skills, or C-STARS, led the group in a donning and doffing exercise, as well as tours.
Schorr has toured other University of Nebraska campuses in the past. The importance of federal funding for research has been a big takeaway on each visit.
“This research is important to Nebraskans and to the broader community as well,” she said.
Schorr was eager to learn about UNMC’s future and how the congressional offices can assist in those plans.
Andy Cookston, military and veteran outreach director with Sen. Pete Ricketts’ office, said it was important to bring the insight gathered from the campus tour back to the office.
“It’s vitally important so we can help push legislation to make sure we’re staying on the leading edge and making sure the university has what it needs to be successful,” Cookston said.
Cookston was impressed with the technology students are using in the facility, especially the iWall. The interactive element lets students get hands-on experience before they even meet with a real patient.
Visits like this one from the congressional staffers are important, said Chris Kratochvil, MD, interim vice chancellor of external relations at UNMC. “We have incredible and critically important support from our congressional delegation. We appreciate their staff taking the time to visit UNMC to see firsthand the important federal initiatives on campus made possible through their ongoing support.”