Reinventing Biomedical Engineering Education Working Towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

Abstract

The engineering design of successful medical devices relies on several key factors, including: orientation to patients’ needs, collaboration with healthcare professionals throughout the whole development process and the compromise of multi-disciplinary research and development (R&D) teams formed by well-trained professionals, especially biomedical engineers, capable of understanding the connections between science, technology and health and guiding such developments. Preparing engineers in general and biomedical engineers in particular to work in the medical industry, in connection with the development of medical devices, is a challenging process, through which the trainee should acquire a broad overview of the biomedical field and industry, a well-balanced combination of general and specific knowledge, according to the chosen specialization, several technical abilities linked to modern engineering tools and professional skills. Besides, understanding that biomedical engineering (BME), may constitute a fundamental resource to achieve global health coverage, biomedical engineers trainees should be made aware of their social responsibility and ethical issues should be always considered in the BME field and in BME education. Ideally, fulfilling the 2030 Agenda, especially as regards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on “Good Health and Well Being” & “Quality Education”, should become the driving context for the biomedical engineers and the biomedical engineering educators of the future. Among the existing teaching-learning methodologies that can be employed for providing such holistic training, project-based learning is presented here and illustrated by means of successful experiences connected to the mentioned SDGs. The great potential of PBL to transform, not only courses on BME, but also complete programmes of studies in BME, and the strategies to connect BME education with the SDGs, are analyzed and discussed in depth. Emerging trends in the field of collaboratively developed open source medical devices (OSMDs) are presented in connection with the concept of “BME education for all”.