There are many ways to jump into the world of biomedical engineering, but a great one is to become a medical engineer yourself. Some of the main fields in medical engineering are: clinical engineering, medical device engineering, medical imaging, tissue engineering, and many more.
The clinical engineering field is more oriented towards the equipment and technologies used in hospitals, clinics, and research centers. Clinical engineers work on installing, technical work and maintenance for machines used by researchers and doctors.
Medical device engineering combines the principles of development, design, and manufacturing of medical devices that diagnose, treat, and monitor the health systems of patients. One example of a kind of medical device engineer is a Research and Development (R&D) engineer. These engineers work on new healthcare technologies by designing experiments to analyze the data. Some companies that combine medical device engineering and clinical engineering are: Medtronic, Boston Scientific, and GE Healthcare.
Medtronic develops a wide range of medical devices. They make cardiovascular products like pacemakers and stents. They also make neurological devices like spinal cord stimulators and devices to monitor one’s brain.
Boston Scientific is a company that specializes in minimally invasive medical products, such as defibrillators or devices for urology, neurology, and gastroenterology. Urology is a medical concept that focuses on the treatment of disorders related to urinary and reproductive systems. Neurology focuses on the nervous system by diagnosing and treating things like strokes, Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy. Gastroenterology focuses on the gastrointestinal tract. This involves intercepting things like heart burn, abdominal pain, and nausea.
To become a biomedical engineer, it is suggested to have at least a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering. When joining most biomedical engineering companies, you will begin as a junior engineer. Your job is to assist senior engineers with testing and development of prosthetic devices and medical machines.
After one to three years of experience in the field, you become a Mid-level Biomedical Engineer (Biomedical Engineer II). The annual salary of a Mid-Level Engineer is around $80,000 to $100,000. Once promoted, your primary tasks move from groundwork to more responsibilities, sometimes leading small teams on tasks. From this point in your career, you can make the decision to go into a more niche aspect of biomedical engineering or head on the path towards management. This includes product or project management.
After you have around five to eight years of experience and technical expertise, you can be promoted to Senior Biomedical Engineer. You can be in charge of major projects and mentoring the junior engineers.
If you decide to become a specialist instead, you would primarily focus on more specific parts of biomedical engineering, such as the previously mentioned clinical engineer, tissue engineer, and more.