In 2022, Dr. Lauren Ramsey, a Texas-based breast surgical oncologist, lost a close friend and fellow surgeon to breast cancer. This tragic loss spurred her mission to protect women healthcare workers who face unique occupational risks.
Recognizing that women orthopedic surgeons are nearly three times more likely to develop breast cancer than the general population, Dr. Ramsey innovated the BAT shield—a T-shirt-style radiation protection garment designed specifically for women in healthcare.
Unlike traditional protective aprons, the BAT shield offers targeted protection for high-risk areas: the breasts, axilla, and thyroid.
Clinical testing showed it reduced radiation exposure in the near-breast area by up to 97%, setting a new standard for healthcare safety.
Partnering with Burlington Medical, a leader in radiation protective gear, Dr. Ramsey’s BAT shield is now available in hospitals across Texas and through national vendors where Burlington Medical is supplied.
The BAT shield’s comfortable fit, mesh panels, and 15 size options ensure flexibility and cooling comfort for long hours in the operating room. Dr. Ramsey’s goal is to make this garment a standard for all healthcare professionals, from doctors to nurses to radiologic technologists, who are exposed to radiation daily.
Dr. Ramsey’s innovation highlights her dedication to protecting healthcare workers while advancing safety standards in the medical field.
Meet this brilliant surgeon and now inventor, Dr. Lauren Ramsey on The Debbie Nigro Show. If you’d rather read than listen the audio transcript is below.
AUDIO TRANSCRIPT:
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And now, back to the Debbie Nigro Show.
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Oh, there’s some things you can get angry about, about the world, but then there’s people who just figure it out and fix those things, so you don’t have to be angry anymore. You’re like, shh, thank goodness for them. Hi everybody, I’m Debbie Nigro, and this is the one day of the week I do wellness information. I call it my Wellness Wednesday Show. So I scoop around all week long reading very interesting things and stuff about really
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interesting people and some things just really stand out from the pack because I’ve been there, done that, seen it all, read it all, so I know when something is glaringly unique. In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and we’re at the tail end, I feel like I’m going to wrap it up with something really special and someone really special. You know, from listening to my show and knowing who I am, that I’m a breast cancer survivor,
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right? And also an ovarian cancer survivor. Try that for fun. Anyway, it’s not easy to stay alive, and it’s better if we try and prevent breast cancer in the first place. Many of us who are lucky enough to survive know there were plenty of us who did not have that gift of going
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on. So what if we could help more women not get breast cancer? Well, wait until you meet this amazing oncologist, Lauren Ramsey, who I read about first in a publication called Health Care Brew. I’m a subscriber to Morning Brew. They started a health care division.
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I’m like, yeah, I’ll subscribe to that. And up pops this gorgeous woman wearing very cool glasses like protection glasses and protective, I’m like either I like her outfit a lot or she’s overprotected and maybe I should look more into this. So what she did was create radiation protective wear to help prevent breast cancer in females who are exposed to radiation in the healthcare industry. I don’t know why nobody thought of this before. It’s called the bat shield and it provides 97% protection from radiation exposure and I just wanted to say Lauren Ramsey, you are amazing.
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Thank you so much for joining my show because I’m so honored to have you.
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Thank you Debbie and I just want to say it’s an honor to be on your show and you are just an inspiration to so many being a survivor of breast and ovarian cancer. So I’m just really honored to be here and honored that you are supportive of the bat.
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Yeah baby. I wrote it, you know, I’m kind of fun and funny and you know there’s a line about people being bat, you know, s-crazy and I said you are bat brilliant man, you are bat brilliant. And I wanted to just say I’m sorry for the reason behind your being motivated to do this which was a loss of a cohort, a female who did die of breast cancer, who, you know, that was really something that apparently that affected you
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and made you hurry up and take some action. So talk to that moment.
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Yes, so I had a medical school classmate of mine who we graduated from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and we both did our trainings, and she did her training in orthopedic surgery. So in orthopedic surgery, they do a lot of x-rays because they’re looking at the bones to make sure that they’re in alignment. So they’re one of the specialties that is around more
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radiation from the x-rays. So after we finished our training, she developed breast cancer and she passed away unfortunately in 2022. So that really just got me thinking, you know, why did this happen? And I knew that radiation was a risk factor for breast cancer but I did some research and saw that there’s a higher rate of breast cancer and orthopedic surgeons up to three
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times higher rates and there’s higher breast cancer rates and radiologic technologists so the techs that are around the radiation and I thought about the protection that we wear and the current aprons that we wear they’re kind
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of like the aprons that you know they’ll
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throw on to you when you go to the dentist, but they have this big hole in the side of the arm and it really just leaves your breast exposed. And these aprons were developed back in 1950. The patents for these are very old, before there were a lot of women in health care. So I thought we need a solution that we can add to protect women and to really protect
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the breast from radiation.
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dental visits and other kinds of visits where they take x-rays and put that over your chest. Is that something that, your invention, would that be helpful in
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other scenarios? It’s more for health care providers who have repeated exposures every single day. Okay. So as a patient, when you’re going to the dental office, you know, that’s once every six months or you’re getting kind of sporadic exposure, or if you’re getting your mammogram, that is a small dose of radiation. But those small doses don’t really have the same risk. The risk come with us doctors or health care providers. We’re doing multiple procedures a day, day after day, that
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is why this is mostly focused for health care providers, because that’s really where the risk comes in. Okay, so you’re now so in addition to being
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you know an amazing oncologist, okay, and and surgeon you now are an inventor So how does this work out where you leave and go home and start drawing on pieces of paper? Like what what was that that move?
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Yes, it was very an interesting journey so I partnered with an interventional radiologist at the hospital where I was doing my training and he had some experience in the radiation protection world but neither of us had
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experience in the fashion design world. So we kind of you know I had the concept and we had to figure out how do we create this garment out of radiation protective material. So basically we worked in the garage and it is kind
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Once it kind of reached the limits of our fashion design, we did get a designer who helped us really get it perfect because we wanted to make it where the radiation protection is where it’s necessary, so along the breast, but not where it’s not necessary because we don’t want it to be too heavy. So it has mesh in the back and then it has mesh in the front where you don’t need that
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radiation protection because it’s covered already by the normal garments.
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And we wanted to make sure it was flexible and you could wear it and move in surgery and in your cases. So it was kind of like, you know, getting it really perfect where everything was protective, but still comfortable.
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Yeah, can we do a shout out to the nice guy who was in the garage with you, helping you make the patterns? What’s his name?
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His name is Dr. Chet Reese. He is an interventional radiologist. And he also helps me with all of the testing. So we made the garment but then we had to test it and get the data and make sure that it did what we wanted it to do. So we did a lot of testing, testing a the radiation in various different positions and then we published a
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research study. So he is a co-author on the study with me and we published that and that you know so that can really back up our claims that it reduces radiation up to 97%.
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Love it. I love the name, the BAT, which, the BAT shield, brilliant, and that stands for breast, axilla, and thyroid. Who came up with that one? That was a good one.
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That was me.
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Good one.
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I came up with that. Yeah, I thought it was catchy, BAT, B-A-T, it’s easy, but it means something breast, axilla and thyroid those are really the areas that we’re adding that extra protection. Also the garment kind of looks like a bat because it has the two sleeves and then that the neck portion kind of like the thyroid shield where a bat ears or would be and then the wings are the sleeves so that was my idea and we you know partnered with Burlington Medical and they liked the name that I came up with so we got to keep the name
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Yeah, great idea and by the way, it’s very fashionable. I would wear that for no reason for absolutely no reason You’ve done something that more and more people should do in the medical community is pay attention to the female body versus the generic Human body, okay, because women have different Things that happen to them as a result of how they’re wired and built so congratulations to you I know that you have started the ball rolling Along with Burlington Medical to make it easier to get the bat shield into different hospitals
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I do think I read that it’s actually cheaper than an actual shield like by the hundred dollars am I crazy am I getting that wrong?
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Yes, so the only there’s nothing like this on the market But the only thing we can kind of compare it to is if you would purchase two sleeves Which people could add to the traditional apron, but they require specific attachments. If you purchase two sleeves and a thyroid shield all separately,
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that would be around six or $700, versus the bat shield, which is $500, if you’re buying it directly from Burlington Medical. But a lot of the hospitals have contract pricing with Burlington Medical already. So if they’re buying a lot through their contracts,
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then it’s at a special price for that hospital.
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Yeah, I want to give you some credit as an entrepreneur. I mean, you’re obviously was very smart to partner with somebody who does what they do, which is, you know, distribute stuff in hospitals. And what are you going to do, leave surgery and go around selling this thing? I mean, you had the idea, you knew how to get out there, and now you can keep practicing what you were meant to be doing, which is helping other people survive and thrive, and
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then using them for their sales team and getting the bet out to people sooner and start making a difference. So how can I be helpful? Are you expanding around the country already or what?
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Yes, so I think just spreading the message starting here is great. So if anyone listening is a healthcare provider who works with radiation, you can talk to your hospital, your director of your department about Burlington Medical. They most likely already do have a contract
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with your hospital because they’re the number one radiation protection supplier in the country. We also have international sales. We were just over in Portugal to do our European launch last month. We’ve been promoting it
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internationally as well because obviously there’s women who need
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protection everywhere. I think if you’re a healthcare provider, talk to your
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reps there. The reps have samples and you can try them on, see how comfortable it is and we will be happy to get you protected. I think you’re amazing. I just
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want to congratulate you. I really just was, I was like wow, talk about making a difference in women’s lives and in the world in general, you know, and I just wanted to make sure that you knew that I thought you were unbelievable and that my audience got a
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chance to know about you too. Well thank you, you know, you’re an unbelievable person as well and I think as you said we just have to be thinking of ways especially as women and as we’re, you know, more present in the healthcare field ways that we need to adapt things for us and this is just you know the first of many but if we can help reduce the risk of breast cancer in this world where
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kind of it seems like the risk of breast cancer is everywhere, if this is one step that people can take and you can kind of feel like you’re in control of that, I think that’s very empowering for people because
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it’s like well I know I can do this to
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reduce my risk and that makes you feel
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website out I’m sure it’ll be posted on the links but it’s BURMED.com slash BAT and that’s where the BAT is available and then you can find me on
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social media at Lauren Ramsey MD. Awesome Lauren. One last question have you been to where these things are being manufactured like coming off like a plant, like a manufacturing, like boom, bat, bat, bat, bat. Have you seen that?
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Yes, we are manufactured here in the USA in Newport News, Virginia. And I have been to the factory, and our employees are wonderful. They’re so excited. We actually did a big launch day
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when we started manufacturing them, and we got everyone really hyped up about it because we’ve been discussing it for a long time and everyone knew it was coming, and all the workers were really excited. We explained our mission and the story behind the bat to the employees as well.
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So they know what they’re creating really has the impact on people to reduce the risk of cancer. So they’re definitely made with a lot of passion and it was awesome to be there at the factory seeing them being produced.
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Alright, I got your next project already in my head. You’re going to develop like a jumpsuit for the rest of the world, and women in particular, something sleek and black, kind of like the angle there, to protect us from all kinds of cancers. Can you just handle that?
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That’s what, yeah, no big deal. I’ll just go back to the garage.
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Go back to the garage, and don’t forget the Lycra.
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Exactly. We’ll have to make it good for form fitting as well. Like thanks.
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It would be so cool if you had like an anti-cancer suit. Boy, I’d have you back on the show for that too. All right, Lauren. Thanks. You have a great personality in addition to your big brain. And keep doing what you’re doing because it’s amazing that you chose this path to be an
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oncologist and a surgeon. I don’t know. You just, you people are just so smart and we’re so grateful, the rest of us, that you know what you’re doing in there. there how do you know what you’re doing in there? Lots of schooling.
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All right have a great day in Texas and thanks again Lauren Ramsey the inventor of the bat shield providing 97% protection now from radiation exposure to all the women in the health care field who are exposed to it awesome Lauren until next time. Thank you. Bye bye.
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She’s going back to surgery. Don’t you ever, don’t you think like if you’re not a doctor or in the healthcare industry when you go into like a hospital or a nursing environment or operating room, how do these people know? You hope these people know what they’re doing. You don’t know because they knock you out and then you just wake up and you’re like
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okay good, that worked. All right, more to come here on the Debbie Nigro Show. Wellness Day of the Week. I want to talk about the meat people. Yes, and the new USDA guidelines, what the meat people are saying about meat, for all you people who love meat, okay, red meat.
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are saying about meat, for all you people who love meat, okay, red meat. Okay, come on back.
Transcribed with Cockatoo
