Hannah
What is a career in biomedical engineering like?
I've been very interested in biochemical engineering for a long time. I am interested in building and/or improving prosthetics. One of my closest friends was born without the lower half on one of her legs. With a lot of hard work and support from friends and family, as well as a great prosthetic leg, she has become a very successful runner. She even won gold in the Paratriathlon in Rio 2016. Throughout all the time I've known her, Grace has been such an inspiration to me, and has convicted me to dedicate my life to biomedical engineering. I realize every experience in this field is different, but I would love to learn more about a day in the life of a biochemical engineer. #engineering #biomedical-engineering #biotechnology #women-in-stem #prosthetics
2 answers
MICHAEL BRAFF, MBA
MICHAEL’s Answer
Hanna, Great reason to go into this field. I chose this for the same reasons. With chemical engineering you will be able to design drugs and other chemical compounds to help people fight infection,and make their lives more comfortable, or more beautiful. In Bio-engineering (molecular or genetic) you can help,people overcome genetic defects and fight cancer, or grow replacement parts that were damaged or diseased. Scientists now are working on finding ways of having us regrow lost limbs. As a Biomedical Engineer you could be designing the next generation of imaging equipment, treatment modality, or even a new phone app to help people keep track of their chronic illnesses and communicate with their doctors before things go too wrong. For people who are good at fixing machines, there are-always new staff needed to keep all those amazing machines running. It may not be as glamourous. as designing, but it does save lives and helps people get well. Biomedical engineering is such a broad field, it is hard to do it justice in just a few sentences. There are many books and journals available to you in your local public or school library. Do some research and see where your passion lies and go for it! Good luck, Michael
Alexander Chu
Alexander’s Answer
Hi Hannah!
That's an amazing story, you're friend is an inspiration to biomedical engineers everywhere!
Regarding prosthetics: It's an amazing time to go into this field since it seems to revolutionize itself every week! So much of the future in prosthetics potentially lies within robotics, in that the connection between man and machine is growing stronger every day. This requires an even greater need for biomedical engineers that have experience not only in mechanical engineering, but also strong skills in coding , CAD, and an in depth knowledge of human anatomy. I think you should go for it!
A day as a biomedical engineer: Since I work at a large medical device manufacturing company I can only speak to the professional side of biomedical engineering (known as "industry") but on the research and development side of the business. The responsibility of R&D is to create new value for a business to create revenue from so it comes as no surprise that we brainstorm innovative and exciting medical devices. But the vast majority of the time we are using CAD to create prototype designs, test those designs, reiterate the design, and test again. In R&D we must product data to prove that the design will work so that other parts of the business will trust our judgement and be able to agree that our ideas should be allowed for patients!
There's a lot to the life of a biomedical engineer, if you ever have questions I'm happy to help!