What is Biomedical Engineering and how to be a Biomedical Engineer ?

Biomedical engineering has a really long history. 3.000 years old Egyptian mummy prosthetic toe made from wood and leather was found, and it is the earliest example. Even simple crutches and walking sticks are also formed of an engineered assistive device.

From the begining of the 20. Century, Modern medical practices have started to develop, and doctors were insufficient for several reasons till that time. Therefore, for the treatment of diseases, a phytotherapy method using herbal medicines was applied. With the increasing knowledge and technology, the world health system has started to develop.

History of Biomedical Engineering Education In Turkey

The history of Turkey’s meeting with this rapidly developing sector in the world took place in the late 1970s. After the Second World War, Turkey has started to focus on this field. Considerable developments in this field started in 1980 because of development in the private sector in Turkey.

Currently, the quota for Biomedical Engineering has increased from 60 to 1254 in 15 years. So Today in 32 universities is given at the undergraduate level. These rapid developments in education and infrastructure are the most significant examples of Turkey’s growth in this market (Bekçi, 2021).

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About Department

Expecting tangible products (tool, device, system, or process) to solve a problem or meet a need from an engineer. He/she designs, builds, operates this product, studies, refines, and develops its behavior in different operating conditions.

As the problems to be solved or the requirements to be met become more complex, the fields of activity of engineering expand, deepen and intertwine. In this process, new engineering disciplines are formed. Biomedical Engineering is one of them.  It has been developing with an increasing momentum for the last fifty years. The field of biomedical engineering is the development of tools, devices, and systems necessary to understand the structures, working styles, and interactions of biological systems in general, and the components of the human body, which is a highly organized and complex system, and to identify and correct their functional disorders.

Moreover, to develop devices, types of equipment for solving clinical problems, Bioengineers work with doctors, therapists, and researchers (Lucas, 2014).

Furthermore, For bioengineers and biomedical engineers, about 1,400 opening positions are projected each year over the decade. Many of those opening positions are expected to result from the need to replace workers who transfer to different occupations or exit the labor force, such as to retire (Bioengineers and Biomedical Engineers, 2021).

As an example of the issues that biomedical engineers deal with in this field:

– Designing and manufacture of instruments that used for sensitivity of the functions of limbs and organs such as hearing aids, electronic devices such as EKG and MRI used for diagnosis, tools such as cautery and catheter used for treatment, devices such as dialysis machine, systems such as surgical robots, artificial materials such as micro-platforms that carry various drugs and release them when necessary and devices that temporarily or permanently take over the functions of limbs and organs such as bone and vascular prostheses, heart valves,

-Developing the necessary instrument-human interfaces for devices, systems, and processes that are designed and produced and made ready for use after performance tests to serve with the highest performance in their fields of use,

-Developing various processes, management, and organizational models in order to increase the quality and efficiency of healthcare services (Biyomedikal Mühendisliği, 2021)

What Does a Biomedical Engineer Do?

Biomedical Engineering is a department that trains people who plan, build, operate and develop electronic equipment and communication systems used in medicine and biological sciences.

  • Designing electronic instruments and systems for medicine and biological sciences,
  • Makes the connections between systems,
  • Running systems,
  • Participates in research and development activities related to systems and devices,
  • During all production stages, Performing quality control

What qualifications should a Biomedical Engineer have?

Outstanding academic ability

Ability to see shape relationships

Interested in science

Strong design power, creativity

Able to see details

They must be careful and responsible people

Biomedical Engineering Salaries Across the World

CountryAvg. Salary
Argentina$570.390 ARS ($13,342 USD).
Australia$123,261 AUD ($87,650 USD)
BrazilR$107.040 BRL ($27,211 USD)
Canada$101,180 CAD ($75,416 USD)
Chile$23.226.370 CLP ($34,728 USD)
China¥246,927 CNY ($36,724 USD)
Colombia$ 35.185.852 COP ($11,101 USD)
Costa Rica16 561 187 CRC ($27,899 USD)
Denmark660 kr. DKK ($74,540 USD)
Egypt130,007 EGP ($7,579 USD)
Finland65 712 € EUR ($73,621 USD)
France54 961 EUR ($61,759 USD)
Germany69.650€ EUR ($78,085 USD)
Israel194,038 ILS ($53,804 USD)
Italy52.763 € EUR ($59153 USD)
Japan¥10,405,862 JPY ($92,956 USD)
Mexico$364,274 MXN ($19,250 USD)
Morocco150,956 MAD ($15,695 USD)
Netherlands€ 60.059 EUR ($67,345 USD)
New Zealand$108,682 NZD ($72,219 USD)
Spain40.342 € EUR ($45,224 USD)
South AfricaR603,099 ZAR ($42,335 USD)
South Korea44,486,423 KRW. ($38,888 USD)
Sweden491.204kr SEK ($52,373 USD)
Switzerland95’432 CHF ($93,575 USD)
Turkey82.779 TRY ($14,157 USD)
United Arab Emirates272,995 AED ($74,322 USD)
United Kingdom£53,546 GBP ($69,651 USD)
United States$99,407 USD
Biomedical Engineering Salaries Across the World, 2021

Famous People who Majored in Biomedical Engineering

Vinod Khosla:

He was born on 28 January 1955. He is an Indian American billionaire businessman and venture capitalist. He is the founder of Khosla Ventures. In addition, He is a co-founder of Sun Microsystems.  In 2014, He named amongst 4000 richest people in the World by Forbes.

Onur Koçak:

He graduated from Başkent University Biomedical Engineering with the 3rd rank.  He is still working in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Başkent University. He has a large number of domestic and foreign scientific and technological articles. He is the owner of a research and development company operating in the field. In addition, he is a consultant and partner to many medical device and biotechnology companies. He is a member of the Chamber of Electrical Engineers. He served as Ankara Branch Vice President in this professional organization for four years. He is also the President of the Biomedical Engineer Businessmen Association. Also, He is a member of the Competences Scientific Committee Published on the TUBITAK – COVID-19 Turkey Web Portal. He is a member of the Turkish Republic Scientific Committee of the Ministry of Health, General Directorate of Public Health.

Larry J Leifer:

He is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University. Development of a collaborative engineering environment for geographically distributed product development teams; instrumentation of that environment for design knowledge capture, indexing, reuse, and performance assessment are his research interests. Moreover, he put an effort on developing tele-assistive robots for physically limited individuals; developing pedagogically informed technology for distributed collaborative learning

Alan Kaganov:

He has been a partner at USVP since 1996. He has been specializing in health care and utilizing. He has 25 years of experience in the medical device industry. His focus is on early-stage investments in the areas of medical technology, novel drug-device combinations, drug delivery systems, and biopharmaceuticals. Alan earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering at Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering, where he won the Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2004. He also serves on its Board of Visitors. He has an Sc.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Columbia University and an M.B.A. from New York University. He has 15 U.S. patents in his name. Prior to USVP, Alan was Vice President of New Business (Famous People who Majored in Biomedical Engineering, 2021)

Conclusion

As of 2010, the number of health institutions has increased rapidly. Thus, the need for a biomedical engineer has doubled. For this reason, the need to increase the quotas in undergraduate, master, and doctoral programs in universities has arisen. Last 2 years, need to biomedical engineers are increase because of Covid-19. During pandemic İzmir University of Economics(one of Turkish university) Biomedical Engineering Department Deputy Head Assoc. Dr. Doluca are introducing the risks of false negatives to the UK, South Africa and rich varieties of the new type of coronavirus (Covid-19). Dr. As the son of the R&D project predicted, Osman Doluca’s plans 5 months ago, in cooperation with the university and Genz Biotek, to meet the masses sensitive to Kovid-19 mutations.

Stating that the coronavirus gene sequences can be analysed with the kit they developed with a special software, Doluca said that in the first experiment conducted last month, the kit successfully detected the mutants of England, South Africa and Brazil. Luckly, Turkey has a infrastructure to  have a chance to make progress on it (Virüs tespitinde önemli buluş, 2021).

Here are some of the best universities has Biomedical Engineering program in Turkey. You can apply to one of them through the MEDU portal easily.

References:

Bekçi, E. (2021, Şubat 11). Biyomedikal Mühendisliği Tarihi. Biyomedikal Mühendisleri Derneği: https://www.biyomed.org.tr/post/bi-yomedi-kal-m%C3%BChendi-sli-%C4%9Fi-tari-hi

Bioengineers and Biomedical Engineers. (2021). U.S Breau of Labor Statistics: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/biomedical-engineers.htm

Biomedical Engineering Salaries Across the World. (2021). Interesting Engineering : https://interestingengineering.com/biomedical-engineering-salaries-worldwide

Biyomedikal Mühendisliği. (2021). BAU: https://bau.edu.tr/icerik/3124-biyomedikal-muhendisligi

Famous People who Majored in Biomedical Engineering. (2021). Ranker: https://www.ranker.com/list/famous-people-who-majored-in-biomedical-engineering/reference

Lucas, J. (2014). What Is Biomedical Engineering? Live Science: https://www.livescience.com/48001-biomedical-engineering.html

Virüs tespitinde önemli buluş. (2021, Temmuz 30). İzmir Ekonomi Üniversitesi: https://bme.ieu.edu.tr/tr/news/type/read/id/7633

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