engineering in action BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING AND Human Body Systems Crabtree Publishing Company www crabtreebooks com Rebecca Sjonger
WHAT IS BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING Doctors and other healthcare experts improve and save people’s lives every day Biomedical engineers make their work possible Like other kinds of engineers they use math science and creative ideas to solve challenges These engineers also understand human body systems Their work helps doctors detect treat and prevent medical problems For example one kind of biomedical engineer may design an x-ray machine that shows broken bones inside bodies The bones may then be repaired with special metal pins and rods developed by a different kind of biomedical engineer EIGHT STEPS TO SUCCESS Biomedical engineers follow a design process or series of steps It makes sure new tools treatments or systems are the best and safest they can be for the people who will use them Engineers follow these steps to design build and test models The heart-lung machine is a biomedical engineering innovation When a patient’s heart and lungs are stopped during surgery this machine does their work outside of the patient’s body Steps in the design process Define the problem Identify criteria and constraints Brainstorm ideas Select a solution Build a model Improve the design Test the model 4 Communicate the solution
Scientists and engineers There is a close link between biomedical science and engineering They are not the same however Scientists study the human body and medical problems such as infectious diseases They investigate how a disease moves from person to person Their research helps engineers take action Engineers design test and build practical ways to solve problems They can develop a new tool or system to prevent a disease from spreading YUAN-CHENG FUNG Yuan-Cheng Fung was born in China In his twenties he moved to the United States to attend the California Institute of Technology He taught aircraft engineering there in the 1950s Around that time his mother developed a medical condition that causes vision loss To help her get better treatment Fung investigated her condition That led him to study other medical problems and the human body Fung left aircraft engineering and started a new field called biomechanics a science that views the body as a machine This area became one part of bioengineering Bioengineering combines engineering practices with the study of living things Biomedical engineering is also part of bioengineering It focuses on developing technologies to solve people’s health problems 5 American Yuan-Cheng Fung received the National Medal of Science in 2000 It honored his work in science and engineering
