Biomedical engineering in tertiary hospital care and industrial development (graduate program)

Biomedical engineering (BME) educational programs have been offered for the past three decades. While they have helped to develop the BME industry, they have not yet successfully addressed the tertiary health professional arena of BME. This is manifested by the absence of BME involvement in clinical care to the same extent as, say, biochemistry. In tertiary care hospitals, BME needs to be involved in day-to-day clinical care, diagnostic and interventional procedures and technology. Hence, in order for BME to become a health-professional discipline, the BME educational curriculum needs to be appropriately designed so as to delineate a definitive professional arena for its graduates. Furthermore, in order to guarantee employment to graduates desiring to work in the BME industry, the curriculum should also include small-business planning, a medical technology development project and a business plan to set up small companies to manufacture and commercialize the medical technologies. This paper presents the curriculum and courses for BME in tertiary clinical care and industrial incubation to be offered as a joint program of the School of Engineering and the School of Business at Osmania University.