Medical engineering applies engineering principles, skills and know-how to create technical advances and solve problems within the areas of medicine and healthcare. Also known as bioengineering and biomedical engineering, this field of engineering is extremely diverse, with the work of a medical engineer ranging from researching the performance of artificial hips and surgical robots to designing and developing electrical toothbrushes.

Products developed by medical engineers typically have very close contact with human life. This interaction with people makes the work challenging and interesting (the human body being one of the most complex engineering systems that has to be designed for), enjoyable (users are involved early in the design process) and rewarding (imagine seeing cancer patients being treated with equipment that you have developed).

With health care being one of the world’s biggest and fastest growing industries and with technical advances such as retinal implants and artificial eyes promised, the future for medical engineers (both in terms of individual career prospects and the overall sector’s achievements and contributions) is most promising.

The principal aims of the IMechE Medical Engineering Division are:

• Promote medical engineering and the health care industry both nationally and internationally
• Provide a focus for technology transfer, the exchange of information and ideas and the dissemination of ‘best practice’ in medical engineering
• Promote medical engineering as a career and the continuing professional development of engineers working in the medical engineering field
• Offer a range of innovative and industry leading events (  RSS feed )