Education in biomedical engineering

Abstract

The interface between electrical engineering and the life sciences has grown enormously over the past three decades, nearly keeping pace with the expanding disciplines themselves. In an era when one finds engineers applying automata theory to genetic control systems, coupled-oscillator theory to the growth of yeast or the synchronizing of circadian rhythms, control theory to the cardiovascular system, communication theory to sensory systems, and network theory to food chains, one is no longer justified in holding a stereotyped view of the Bio-Medical Engineer, or in providing a specialized education to correspond to that stereotype. It is proposed that the undergraduate education of a bioengineer should introduce him to the breadth of that interface along which he eventually must choose a niche. Thus early specialization, both in engineering and in the life sciences is undesirable.