This week I asked 10 questions about bioengineering. After I
had my questions ready I found a textbook about bioengineering to try and
answer my questions. This text book is simply called “A Textbook of Biological
Engineering” edited by R.M. Kendi. My questions were as follows:
- What is biomedical engineering?
- Is it mostly making things that can replace tissue?
- Do biomedical engineers work more in Hospitals or laboratories?
- Would biomedical engineers make machinery such as MRI machines?
- Have they made artificial blood?
- Are prosthetics more robotics or actual human intervention?
- How do they make prosthetic limbs that can read muscle impulses?
- What is the history of prosthetic limbs?
- What amount of the human body could be safely replaced with prosthetics in this day and age?
- Does a biomedical engineer also help make and design surgical equipment?
I found answers for some of my questions in this textbook. This Text book used more technical jargon that made it rather difficult to tell if what i was looking for actually appeared in the text. I
also found that some of the questions I had asked seemed to have some
overlapping answers. This reflects my primary interest area within the field of
Bioengineering. However, some of my questions were not answered by the text
book. This happened for a variety of reasons. Some couldn't be answered because
the book was simply too old to have answers to questions that are as modern as
they are. Another reason I couldn't find an answer was because it didn't relate
to the actual science as much as it did the logistics of the professional field.
I think that these answers would be really easy to find by surfing the web and
locating professional document that are more current. These are the questions
and the answers I found in the book as well as my short responses to what I had found:
- What is biomedical engineering?
“The applications of engineering to two categories: the
engineering study of the human body in health and disease, and the development
of engineering instrumentation and devices for medical research and practice”
in my words this means that it is the mix of studying how the human body works
and how to fix it when it breaks, and maintain it in health.
- Is it mostly making things that can replace tissue?
No they do a lot more than make people bionic and artificial.
Before looking into the topic I thought that a large portion of what
bioengineers did was make bionic and prosthetic limbs and artificial hearts and
other such things. They also study how the human body works and where stress is
on the body during activity. They also make machines that assist medical
professionals in their jobs.
- Would biomedical engineers make machinery such as MRI machines?
Yes. In addition to just MIR machines bioengineers make all
types of imaging equipment to try to make an easier machine to get good results
for medical professionals. Bioengineers also have to study how the medical
equipment might affect the body. For instance with a pacemaker for an irregular
heart the engineers have to know how the electoral impulses of the body may be interrupted
by the presence of the electrical currents produced by the pacemaker
- Are prosthetics more robotics or actual human intervention?
It is a mix called Bionics. Bionics is defined as “the study
of engineering mechanisms of the biological processes and their applications in
engineering” by this specific textbook. To me this means that this is how
people can make things to augment the human body.
Citation
Boddy, K., J. M. Courtney, J.D. S. Gaylor, T. Gilchrist, T.G. Grassie, and R.M. Kendi. A Textbook of .......Biomedical Engineering. Ed. R. M. Kendi. Glaslow: Blackie, 1980. Print.
Boddy, K., J. M. Courtney, J.D. S. Gaylor, T. Gilchrist, T.G. Grassie, and R.M. Kendi. A Textbook of .......Biomedical Engineering. Ed. R. M. Kendi. Glaslow: Blackie, 1980. Print.
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