Can An Engineer Study Medicine?

There’s plenty of scope for an engineering graduate in the field of medicine. Whether you’ve passed out of mechanical engineering courses or any other relevant vertical in engineering, you can build a bright career in medical technology with the proper foundation. The growth of biomechanics, robotics, and nanotechnology has expanded the horizons of medicine and improved the quality of life that people experience despite ailments. 

In medical technology, the role of an engineer is to innovate, design, and maintain medical devices, make biomedical and therapeutic devices, various surgical instruments, and countless others. A dedicated master’s in medical technology will give you the necessary knowledge to carry out all the functions of an engineer in medicine. 

You’ll often find that, where there’s innovation in manufacturing, an engineer is often the hand behind its success. The same goes for healthcare technology. The development of technologies like tissue engineering, organ-on-a-chip, biomechanics like prosthetics, and mechanical exoskeletons wouldn’t have been possible without the contribution of engineers. 

There are certainly more than enough things you can do as a biomedical engineer. We give you a brief overview of what it might look like to work in medicine as an engineer. Several sub-disciplines and technologies require engineers in medicine. 

Tissue Engineering is the discipline of regenerating biological tissues with the help of cells placed on tissue scaffolds and biomaterials. Stem cell research has gone above and beyond our expectations to create artificial organs and in-vitro meat. Bioartificial hearts, artificial human skin embedded in the hydrogel, and a host of other mind-boggling inventions that you can manufacture as a biomedical engineer. 

Biomechanics is a sub-discipline of biophysics. Its application includes, among other things, creating the same motion and function as biological organs and limbs to help amputees and paraplegic people live everyday life. Biomedical engineers will devise ways to make prosthetics, exoskeletons, and orthotics. It might include injury biomechanics and sports biomechanics(to prevent musculoskeletal injuries). 

Medical Informatics is the process of acquiring, storing, and processing patient data that comes from diagnostics, health records, and scans. Health informatics often applies data science to find insights and make developments in medicine with the help of gigantic data sets. It becomes increasingly important as data piles up to find repetitive patterns and weed out redundancies in medical data to help patients lead healthier lives. 

Mechanobiology is very different from biomechanics. A new kid on the block, mechanobiology, is used to mimic biological processes at a cellular level. It aims to improve the delivery of drugs by studying nanoparticles. In simple words, mechanobiology helps us understand how mechanical forces react at the molecular and cellular levels with biological systems. 

So if all these exciting developments in the field of medicine get you going, think no more. Start enrolling yourself in life-science and biomechanical seminars or workshops, apply for internships in hospitals, research labs, or pharmaceutical companies and finally get that highly sought-after master’s in healthcare technology that will boost your career furthermore.