• Question: What subjects did you have to study at Uni, to become an engineer involved with medicine?

    Asked by kathrynduffy3 to Amit, Emily, Joanne, Martin, Paige on 16 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Paige Brown

      Paige Brown answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      Hi Kathryn! Good question…

      I don’t know the specific courses, but you definitely want to have a strong base in Math, calculus, biology, Chemistry, organic chemistry, and physics. You might also want to study Molecular and Cell Biology, biochemistry, and many basic engineering design courses!

    • Photo: Joanne Davies

      Joanne Davies answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      I studied chemistry and I’ve worked with medicines, but I never used my knowledge of chemistry at all in the pharmaceutical industry.

      I did however put all I learned from my HND in Product Design and Manufacture into practice. In fact, everything I learned at university, I use almost every day in my job.

    • Photo: Amit Pujari

      Amit Pujari answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      That is a really good question kathrynduffy3, because to become an engineer involved with biology or medicine you need to study subjects which doctors study+ engineers study
      I studied- anatomy, physiology, maths+statistics, electronics, special module on medical devices, etc.

      Bioengineering/biomedical engineering is a huge area. So there are many special modules you can choose depending on your interests but main subjects you have study could be the combination of : Anatomy, physiology, molecular/cellular biology, Maths+statistics, Physics, elctronics/mechanical engg…

    • Photo: Martin Wallace

      Martin Wallace answered on 18 Mar 2012:

      I came from a background that had very little to do with medicine before I started in this job – I studied mechanical engineering at university which is a course that covers a lot of different topics. I studied things like Mechanics – which tells you how things move; Fluids – about how liquid and gas behaves; Robotics – learning about the software and programming of robots; Finite Element Analysis – about calculating stresses in a material.
      There was one subject that I studied that was involved with medicine – Biomedical Engineering. This is a type of engineering dealing with the human body, for example designing hip replacements and heart valves or operating tools. I found this really interesting and realised I could use my engineering skills to make things to help people.

    • Photo: Emily Bullen

      Emily Bullen answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      There are lots of different types of engineers involved with medicine, as you can see from our backgrounds 🙂
      I think you might want to approach it from the other end: which type of engineering would you be most interested in studying, and then see how it can fit in with the area you want to work it, whether it be medicine or elsewhere?

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