Biomedical Engineering Education in Europe: A 30 Years Review

Dermitzakis, Aris; Alexandropoulos, Christos; Fermani, Maria; Pallikarakis, N.

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-64610-3_24

Cited by 2 publications

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“…Our paper uses extensively primary sources under the form of official documents issued by international, European and national authorities because, after an extensive desk research of the existing literature, we noticed that there are very few similar and even fewer recent contributions published in the last ten or, more specifically, the last five years. Some focus only on the situation of BME programs in Europe in order to identify development trends [ 2 ] or only on the global situation of BME undergraduate programs [ 3 ], whereas others [ 4 ] concentrate on another case study about the need to certify the “clinical engineering” branch. There are also some contributions focused on the personal development of BME graduates [ 5 ] or on promoting the inclusion and diversity of candidates and, implicitly, graduates [ 6 ].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regulation and Certification of (Bio)Medical Engineers: A Case Study on Romania

Miculescu

Ion

2022

IJERPH

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This paper analyzes the Romanian biomedical engineering educational path and certification process in European and international contexts and emphasizes the existence of a deficient operationalization of this qualification and profession, arguing that the domestic shortcomings are both a consequence of an unquestioned process of adopting European and even international classification schemes, and of insufficiently developed national administrative capabilities to properly implement the aforementioned classification frameworks. The core part of the article investigates the current academic track of the biomedical engineering specialization and scrutinizes the classification of occupations at different jurisdictional levels. The conclusions of the study indicate that one of the possible solutions for improving this unsatisfying status quo comes from a better communication between the national and European levels, and by their pro-active involvement in the international attempts of reviewing and refining the existing frameworks. The article ends with several recommendations and policy proposals meant to strengthen the role of various profession-certifying European documents, as well as to alleviate the regulatory deficiencies that this specialization has at Romanian level, in order to maximize its potential in the labor market.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regulation and Certification of (Bio)Medical Engineers: A Case Study on Romania

Miculescu

Ion

2022

IJERPH

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Biomedical/clinical engineering education and certification: fifty years of actions

Pallikarakis

2022

Health Technol.

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Health care is today technology driven and biomedical engineering is behind the impressive developments that reshaped medicine during the last 50 years. Biomedical Engineers (BMEs) as professionals are playing a vital role during the whole life cycle of Medical Devices (MDs), from the innovative idea to their final use and decommissioning. This rapid evolution creates a constant pressure for new knowledge and skills for the BMEs and therefore for continuous curriculum updates of education in BME, to meet current trends and market demands. Biomedical Engineering is relatively new when compared with other engineering disciplines. The earliest programs during the 1970s, most of which were at Doctoral and M.Sc. levels. B.Sc. programs were developed in most European Universities from the 1990s. Today there is an impressive trend to create new programs and the number of higher education institutions offering a BME degree is almost two hundred, just in Europe. Although biomedical engineering is playing a vital role in innovation, development, maintenance, and safe use of medical technology, BMEs are not yet recognized as a distinct professional entity and do not appear in the International Labour Organisation (ILO) lists. This is partly because biomedical engineering covers a very broad domain and includes professionals with very heterogeneous areas of specialization. Unlike in other engineering fields, where certification is a prerequisite for being a licensed professional, even for the clinical engineering, certification is not widely applied. This is mainly due to the lack of motivation since certification is not mandatory. In contrast with other health care professionals, that cannot practice their profession if they are not officially registered, such requirement does not exist for clinical engineers. In the present paper a review of the developments in BME educational programs in Europe, fifty years long, is attempted, focusing on some important initiatives and actions well known to the author. Additionally, some aspects of Clinical Engineering certification are addressed.

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Biomedical Engineering Education in Europe: A 30 Years Review

Cited by 2 publications

References 4 publications

Regulation and Certification of (Bio)Medical Engineers: A Case Study on Romania

Regulation and Certification of (Bio)Medical Engineers: A Case Study on Romania

Biomedical/clinical engineering education and certification: fifty years of actions

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