Medical Instrumentation
Figure 1. An artificial hip implant.Copyright A black and white drawing shows a hip prosthesis components: cup, ball, stem, and where the stem is inserted into the femur.
Students learn about the sorts of devices designed by biomedical engineers and the many other engineering specialties that are required in their design of medical diagnostics, therapeutic aids, surgical devices and procedures, and replacement parts. They discuss the special considerations that must be made when dealing with the human body, such as being minimally invasive, biocompatible, keeping sterile, lightweight, corrosion resistant, long lasting and electrically safe. They also explore how "form fits function." Students gain an appreciation for the amazing devices that improve our quality of life. This lesson serves as a starting point for students to begin to ponder how the medical devices in their everyday lives work.
Biomedical engineers design all sorts of medical equipment and systems, including EGCs, pacemakers, defibrillators, prosthetics, implants, vascular graphs, x-rays, MRIs, medicine delivery systems, replacement valves and laparoscopic surgery. Biomedical products require the expertise of electrical, mechanical computer science and chemical engineers, working with physicians. This lesson and associated activity look at the special design challenges engineers face when designing surgical instruments and other biomedical devices used with living human bodies.
After this lesson, students should be able to:
- Make hypotheses about the function instruments from their shapes and material properties.
- State some of the considerations that must be taken into account by biomedical engineers when working with the human body, which might not be factors in other engineering disciplines.
- Hypothesize why a certain material was chosen for a specific medical instrument.