Biomedical Engineering

What is it?

Biomedical engineering or medical engineering is the application of engineering principles and design concepts to medicine and biology for healthcare applications. (Wikipedia)

What are some common ways biomedical engineering has been applied into the medical field?

MRI machines: Used in radiology to form pictures of the anatomy and physiological processes inside the body. (Wikipedia) This is useful in diagnosing diseases such as cancer, however it can be expensive to use. It was invented by Raymond Damadian in 1977 and has now become commonly used especially in gaining images of the brain.

Dialysis machines: Where the membranes filter waste products from your blood, which are passed into the dialysate fluid (NHS) The benefits of this is that the blood, upon returning to the person will be cleaner and there will be no overall changes in blood glucose levels. However the disadvantages are that these machines are quite expensive and time consuming for the patient as they must be connected to it for long periods. (BBC bitesize) The creation of this machine began in the late 1930s by Willem Kolff and is especially used today for the treatment of kidney failure.

Ultrasound: An ultrasound scan uses high-frequency sound waves to make an image of a person’s internal body structures. (Better Health Channel) The advantages of their use are that they are widely available, easy to use and less expensive than other methods. (Radiology Info). Although the drawbacks are that the quality of the image is variable across the operators.

Due to the increased use and reliance of this machinery, careers in biomedical engineering in the future could prove to be quite useful in order to develop more convenient ways of treatment or illness detection.

By Jannat Awais