Biomedical Engineering education is an education that doesn't teach you anything about marketable skills. Those professions are created for Electrical engineers, Computer engineers, etc. Unlike Other majors, BME is a combination of various different majors, and although this won't make you better than other engineers it can make your mindset more unique. This fact is mostly useful in scientific areas which include the Health industry. Let's look at it in terms of Tissue Banks.
Biomedical Engineering education is an education that doesn't teach you anything about marketable skills. Those professions are created for Electrical engineers, Computer engineers, etc. Unlike Other majors, BME is a combination of various majors, and although this won't make you better than other engineers, it can make your mindset more unique. This fact is mostly useful in scientific areas, which include the Health industry. Let's look at it in terms of Tissue Banks. I worked at a tissue bank as a Quality Control Manager for some time in the past. Primary duties you ll have been to check the quality of the incoming tissue, quality of the work, maintaining the devices used to create the product, and a lot of paperwork.
1) Incoming tissues to be used to generate the products that will be used in the medical operations by the doctors. In this case, your physical and biomechanical education will come to play. You will need to make sure the medical history of the incoming tissue doesn't make that tissue ineligible for processing. To give an example, the tissue might have HIV, etc. After that, you must do a physical assessment of the tissue to see if it can be processed.
2) Quality of the work and the process. Usually, you will need to check 1 or 2 samples of products from each session and each tissue used to generate that product. You must make sure that the quality of the product is compliant with the standards to be used in the surgery. Again your biomechanical and biological knowledge comes to play here.
3)Making sure the devices used for the work are functional and maintained. You must make sure all of the medical devices are fully functional and maintained periodically to be able to keep up with the demand. There are contracts you need to fulfill the requirements, and your part is to make sure production speed won't be affected because of this. Here, your engineering skills come to play. You will need to wear a bodysuit not only to guard yourself against contamination but also to keep the production area particul-free. Now try to fix which is already a complicated device with a bodysuit, which lowers your eyesight and your effectiveness.
4)Lastly, the paperwork. It would be best if you recorded all you do at any stage in a formal language. If something goes wrong and any paperwork is missing, you will be the blame, which can cause not only you lose your job but also lawsuits and imprisonment. Sometimes you need to create new procedures too. These must be cost-efficient and compliant with the government. The government will want the best while your boss will want the cheapest option. If you make the mistake of keeping your boss happy, keep it affordable, and something goes wrong again, you will be the one to blame, and again lawsuits and imprisonment could be the result. No one will accept your fault in the health industry, especially if a patient gets hurt.
I agree that as a biomedical engineering major who currently works in the tissue bank industry, most of the knowledge and skills that I have, I have learned on the job. As a bme student like you mentioned we learn a little bit about everything and while you are a master of no trade in particular I do think this comes in very handy in my current industry. In my experience I have needed to use my electrical knowledge, mechanical knowledge and biology knowledge mixed with engineering mindset in order to solve many unique problems that are encountered when working with human tissue. While the industry itself is not as stringent as the medical device industry, there is also less guidance on how to approach unique problems. We are left to set our own standards in some cases which makes our quality first mindset and ability to learn new topics very valuable. Accountability is so important and every decision made has to do with patient safety. Like you mentioned, paperwork is crucial, if it was not documented then it never happened. At the tissue bank I work for everything is manually documented by the process technicians which can lead to made documentation errors and non-conformances. Situations such as these have tested my knowledge of different aspects and challenged my ability to gage and mitigate risk. Though biomedical engineering as a major doesn't make you an expert in any particular thing, it makes you the prime candidate to get creative with the knowledge you do have, teaches you how to find information, and apply that knowledge to solve the unique problems that come up.
Hello All,
I too work in a laboratory like both of you mentioned above, but I focus on cytogenetics in a pathology lab. My background is in biology and i am pursuing this degree to transition into the biomedical engineering field or QA/QC department. I do see how a BME undergrad would be beneficial in any biological and medical setting, specially when one is involved with quality assurance. I also believe BME gives me an edge when trying to obtain a job, it makes you more marketable.
I hope that this masters degree allows me to transition o the tissue engineering field since all of the skills acquired while working at the laboratory are transferable. It will definitely help in acquiring a higher position and perhaps make me candidate for the QC department as well.
Biomedical Engineering education is an education that doesn't teach you anything about marketable skills. Those professions are created for Electrical engineers, Computer engineers, etc. Unlike Other majors, BME is a combination of various different majors, and although this won't make you better than other engineers it can make your mindset more unique. This fact is mostly useful in scientific areas which include the Health industry. Let's look at it in terms of Tissue Banks.
I agree with this statement. I believe biomedical engineering is one of the most flexible degrees created for undergraduate students. You can do so many things with it, from prosthetics to medical equipment, to designing a product to vaccines and tissue banks and tissue engineering. I support the statement of "it dan make your mindset unique", changes your mid-set to execute tasks assigned for you efficiently by utilizing technology for best results. Tissue banks related jobs might not all need a BME degree but when someone with a BME degree would stand out due to their way of thinking.
