AIMBE's Role in Promoting Biomedical Engineering Input to Public Policy [Letters]

The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, known as AIMBE, was founded in 1991 by a group of dedicated biomedical engineers. Within the next two years, 282 Founding Fellows joined the institute with the goal of promoting public awareness of medical and biological engineering. AIMBEs main purpose is to provide leadership and advocacy in the field of medical and biological engineering for the benefit of society. To accomplish this mission, AIMBE works to establish liaisons with government agencies, industry, and professional associations. AIMBE is dedicated to fostering inter-society relations and cooperation with all the disciplines that are required to advance the field, including electrical, mechanical, and chemical engineering; biology, medicine, and public health; chemistry; physics; and math. To advance this goal, AIMBEs founders recognized that they must play an active role in discussions regarding public policy and the public funding of bioengineering research. They also recognized that this group of leaders had a duty to society to promote the inclusion of women and minorities in the engineering fields. As demonstrated in the following text, AIMBEs advocacy for biomedical engineering input into public policy has been beneficial for patients, doctors, and the entire medical and biological engineering community.