Sunday, September 25, 2016

Comparing Biomedical Engineering to Other Fields

By: Noemi Melo      
             Biomedical engineering is different from all other engineering fields. This is because of the way it deals with the understanding of the human body. For example, biomedical engineers need to know about molecules, cells, tissues, organs, the circulatory system, nerves, muscles, bones, and anything that will help them understand how the body works. As a biomedical engineer, you must add life sciences and the medical knowledge that is necessary to understand the frame work of the problems which you will face. With biomedical engineering, you are studying biology and engineering at the same time. Engineers design equipment and devices, such as artificial internal organs and the replacements of body parts. These engineers need to know how to install, adjust, maintain, repair, and provide technical support for the devices they make. They have to develop life support systems, as well as create devices to aid the impaired or disabled and they create systems to allow better diagnosis of medical disorders. Another difference that biomedical engineering has with the other engineering fields is that in this field these engineers mainly work in health care.
             Many of the other engineering fields don’t have to deal with the understanding of the human body and how it works. Aside from this difference other engineers don’t have to worry about reconstructing a heart or body part. Computer engineers focus on computers and anything related to technology. A mechanical engineer focuses on the development of processes and products. They have to build a product and test it out to see if it was properly developed. Although biomedical engineers develop products as well they manly focus on developing products for the body and not like car parts and so on. A packaging engineer focuses on the manufacturing process of a product and the placement of the product. The other engineering fields don’t focus on building prosthetics and organs.
             As a biomedical engineer you get to help paralyzed people walk again. For people who have been in accidents and have lost a body part, biomedical engineers design and produce prosthetics to help them walk again. Another cool thing that biomedical engineers do is reconstruct body organs, like a heart, to help people that need heart transplants get off the waiting list. Other than that, biomedical engineers study how they can cure cancer. A cancer that biomedical engineers have worked to cure is ovarian cancer. They have been able to build a 3D model of ovarian cancer in order to find out how to cure this type of cancer. In the future biomedical engineers will be able to cut back on melanoma biopsies and the goal of this new device will be to reduce the number of patients left with unnecessary biopsy scars and along with this they are looking forward to eliminating the cost of unnecessary procedures. Another technology is the electronic aspirin for people who suffer from migraines, cluster headaches, and so on. This device involves the permanent implant of small nerves stimulating this device in the upper gum on the side of the head normally affected by a headache. Biomedical engineers are also developing a needle-free diabetes care. This device will replace the poke with a patch. 
             With the information provided above everybody now knows how cool the field of biomedical engineering is rather than the other engineering fields.
                                                                   
Sources
Indiana University. "Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis." Is Biomedical Engineering              Right for Me? N.p., 2014. Web. 24 Sept. 2016.

"An Exploration of Biomedical Engineering." Youtube. N.p., 1 Dec. 2015. Web.

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