Patenting History

Jamie Shultz ’12

Shultz helps herself and others with first-to-market medical device  

Jamie Shultz’s graduation from Clemson University brought plenty of good fortune: She earned a law degree, passed the bar exam, got engaged and started her dream job at King and Spalding LLP in Atlanta. That’s when the persistent chest pain started.

“(Doctors) said I was probably anxious and overworked,” she recalls. “I was in the hospital pretty much every weekend the rest of that year.”

Shultz was diagnosed with multiple autoimmune diseases and began receiving medications through a chest port — a small, implanted device that helps administer medication by allowing easy access to large veins. The chest port was a positive step in Shultz’s health journey, but the process of administering the medication was still unnecessarily painful and complex.

When preparing to receive medicine through a chest port, patients are encouraged to place a dollop of EMLA cream over the port to numb the area. Though seemingly simple, it was difficult to keep the cream in place because it had to be secured by something that wouldn’t absorb it. Doctors recommended plastic wrap.

“It was terrible,” Shultz says. “I would get to the infusion center, and the cream would be in my hair, all over my seatbelt or completely moved across my chest. Then I wasn’t even numb when they inserted the needle into the port.”

Shultz scoured the internet to find a more effective option than plastic wrap. “I started looking to see if there was anything that could help, but there was nothing on the market,” she says. “So, I started researching because that’s what I was taught at Clemson — to figure it out.”

Over the next few months, she researched everything. One of the largest hurdles of the process was finding a manufacturer for the design once a prototype had been solidified.

“When you’re a nobody and sick, it’s really hard to get people to talk to you,” she explains.

Still, Shultz did not give up. She eventually found a manufacturer with a personal connection to her story, and Port Protect was born. It went into production in 2023, and Shultz finished the patent process in 2024, making Port Protect her own.

For Shultz, Port Protect has never been about making money.

From the skills and values she learned at Clemson to the research and creation of a first-to-market product, Shultz’s mission has become clear over time.

“I’ve always wanted to help people, but I never imagined I’d do it quite like this,” she says. “Because nobody gets (an illness) until they get it, and nobody should ever have to get it.”

FUN FACT: Shultz has also patented a children’s version of Port Protect, which features a reduced adhesive carefully designed for the comfort and safety of smaller bodies.