Job Descriptions - Definitions - Career Fields: Biomedical Engineer

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Biomedical Engineer

A biomedical engineer requires a basic engineering science education, knowledge of biological and medical technology and should be versatile, have wide interests and able to integrate this knowledge.
As you would be working as a team, you must be able to get along well with people and with patients. Administrative skills and computer literacy are also important.

You would be involved with applying engineering principles to medically related problems by designing and developing medical instruments and devices like cardiac valves, operating theatre apparatus and mobility aids for the handicapped. Your tasks would include determining blood flow patterns during diagnosis of blood vessel illnesses or disorders. You might wish to dedicate yourself to a specific field such as research, system analysis, computer simulations and other scientific approaches or focus on the development of instruments, surgical materials, artificial organs and computer programmes to be used for the treatment and care of patients. Some of the more well known inventions include the hearing aid, heart-lung machine, heart-pacemaker, heart pump, hip replacement joints and so on.

In 1960, John Charnley, an engineer and surgeon working at a hospital in Lancashire, began to fit his patients with a replacement hip. This was a metal ball in a plastic socket. The head of the femur is now replaced by a metal ball on a long stalk inserted in the shaft of the bone. The ball fits into a plastic cup which is glued into the hipbone socket. The familiar heart-pacemaker was first used in 1952 by Dr. Paul Zoll of the Harvard Medical School. The first reliable artificial heart valve was invented in 1961 by Albert Starr, a surgeon and his collaborator, Lowell Edwards. There are many more such inventions just waiting to be discovered and you might be the person to find them.

This profession covers a wide area of skills and knowledge and so many people tend to specialise in a certain field. You would be using your skills to improve medical methods and protect people by developing new processes, tools, machinery and a wide variety of equipment. Engineers are essential to the economic growth and well being of any country.

Because of the wide field of engineering, this would depend on your area of specialisation. Some engineers dedicate themselves to research and use system analysis, computer simulations and other scientific methods. Others focus on the development of instruments, surgical materials, artificial organs and computer programmes to be used in the treatment and care of patients. You would be part of a multi-professional team of doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and occupational therapists in a clinical setting. Your aim would be to construct and develop new instruments, improve instruments and devices in a way that may help to relieve suffering and improve the quality of the patient's life. Biomedical engineers work in laboratories or hospitals and are in daily contact with doctors, nurses, patients and the public.

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Career Fields


Engineering
Medical
Science and Technology

 
 
 



 
 

Courtesy: CareerExpo

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