I agree I do not believe a clinical background is necessary to work in this field. Engineers that have gone through the 4 plus years and are strong in their field should be able to get these jobs without clinical background. I do understand that engineers may not know how to communicate well with doctors or even the patients but this is a trait that can be learned as was said above. There is no reason to have 3-5 years of clinical background just to be able to communicate with doctors or patients. Personally I have witnessed people become scribes which are the people who walk around with the doctor and write down what is said between the doctor and the patient. They were college students with no clinical background. All they did was take a couple classes online to learn all the terminology, rules and regulations. It was a good amount of online classes each three hours each but now they are able to work with the doctor and patients. Maybe this can be a way for engineers to be more qualified to work in this field by giving them a couple classes to teach them all the terminology, rules and regulations.