Bioengineers and Biomedical Engineers

Not long ago, I visited a relative of mine in the hospital — he'd had a heart attack and was moved to the intensive care unit. I was struck by how much medical equipment was there — all the patients were lying on advanced, remotely controlled beds, and next to each bed was a set of devices and equipment that looked extremely precise. My curiosity got the better of me, and I asked about them. A doctor told me these devices ranged from ventilators, to pacemakers, to devices for monitoring organ function, to anesthesia machines, and various other tools used by doctors and nurses to help critically ill patients. The question that came to mind then was: what was the world like before these things were invented? How were diseases diagnosed and surgeries performed before most of the medical devices and equipment we know today existed? An even more mysterious question for those of us far removed from the world of medicine is: how are these precise devices and pieces of equipment manufactured? There are experts known as "biomedical engineers" who handle these tasks — they're responsible for designing, manufacturing, and developing the various medical devices and equipment used in diagnosis and surgery. They also manufacture physical therapy devices and artificial limbs and organs implanted in the human body, along with other medical inventions that have helped save the lives of hundreds of millions of people over the past decades.

Meet the Writer: Waleed Abo Omiraa