Engineers. At the forefront of INNOVATION

Engineers. At the forefront of INNOVATION

Innovation and practical solutions are synonymous with Engineers and Engineering. Thus, it is not surprising that a merging of professions has been the result of inquisitive engineers. The suitably named “biomedical engineering” discipline is the pairing of two sciences; medicine and engineering. In a snapshot, this unique engineering specialty involves the application of engineering principles and design concepts to medicine and biology, with the explicit aim of enhancing health care.

The medical field has required the involvement of both engineers and technicians for decades, though, in a less direct manner. For example, medical machinery was the product of engineering design. Another example – one based on an incident that occurred back in the early 1980s.

A doctor who had contracted AIDS from a needle stick injury was subsequently scathing of engineers during an interview. He complained that they were insensitive and unresponsive to the daily dangers faced in frontline health care. In response, Thomas J Shaw, a mechanical and structural engineer, got to work. Shaw spent twelve months developing preliminary design concepts for an automated retraction syringe which he did eventually patent. It involves a friction ring mechanism which causes the contaminated needle to retract automatically from the patient into the barrel of the device, a feature which also prevents reuse – bravo!

A newly designated field of engineering is exciting promises to be extensive in its scope; biomechatronics, bioinstrumentation, cellular, tissue and genetic engineering are just a few of the many topics that it includes. Biomedical engineers will increasingly find themselves in demand as populations grow and medicine advances.

Engineers and technicians who are already specialists in their various fields should not despair, however. The transition to biomedical engineering need not be difficult. As already mentioned above; engineering principles and concepts are merely applied to the discipline of medicine.

For more information, including online courses and technical manuals, please visit the Engineering Institute of Technology website