This article focuses on undergraduate biomedical engi-neering (BME) curriculum, particularly on how to ad-dress industrial needs and to what extent a commoncurriculum can and should exist. It is part review, part

description of the current work of the VaNTH (VanderbiltUniversity; Northwestern University; University of Texas atAustin; and Health, Science and Technology at Harvard/MIT)Engineering Research Center for Bioengineering EducationalTechnologies [1], and part editorial. The editorial offers asnapshot of the continually evolving effort to integrate ideasfrom many sources for the improvement of curriculum inBME. These ideas and recommendations are accessible on theWeb site of the VaNTH curriculum project [2]. The term bio-medical engineering denotes a type of engineering with astrongly medical focus. It encompasses programs that arecalled bioengineering (BE) but which have the same flavoras BME.

The first BME undergraduate degrees were granted lessthan 40 years ago. Full agreement about the content knowl-edge needed for a B.S. in BME does not exist now and is notlikely to exist in the near future. Our recent survey of requiredcurriculum in accredited pro-grams found no courses thatwere required by all, althoughcourses in biomechanics andsystems physiology werequite common. This lack ofagreement at the course leveldoes not mean that there is nosimilarity at the content level,however. Our hypothesis isthat it will be possible toachieve consensus about keyelements of the BMEcurriculum.

Current StatusDuring the 1970s, there was asteady growth in the numberof programs granting under-graduate degrees, and thenumber of graduate programswas always larger than the

number of undergraduate programs. At many universities, theawarding of degrees preceded the creation of the BE or BMEdepartments. At present, there are 24 programs accredited bythe Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology(ABET). The earliest accreditations were those for the pro-grams at Duke University and the Rensselaer Polytechnic In-stitute, both in 1972 [3]. A handful of additional programshave existed for a number of years without ABET accredita-tion, primarily because their educational philosophies do notallow them to meet the ABET criteria. After a lull in the1980s, the 1990s and early 2000s have seen a rapid increase inthe number of BE programs (see Figure 1), spurred partiallyby resources made available by the Whitaker Foundation [4].Other aspects of the growth of the field are reviewed in [5] and[6]. The number of accredited programs is expected toroughly double in the next few years as new programs gradu-ate their first classes, but growth beyond that is uncertain. Thenumber of graduates in BME is small compared to that in themore established engineering fields. While it is not easy tocount the graduates precisely, given the variation in names ofthe degree, it appears that 1,049 BME B.S. degrees were

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BME

Educ

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n What Makes ABiomedical Engineer?Defining the UndergraduateBiomedical Engineering Curriculum

ROBERT A. LINSENMEIER

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Fig. 1. B.S. and Ph.D. programs in biomedical engineering, compiled from Whitaker Foundationdata, 2000 [5]. Reprinted with permission from the Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering,Volume 4, 2002 by Annual Reviews, www.annualreviews.org.

IEEE ENGINEERING IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY MAGAZINE JULY/AUGUST 2003 33

awarded in 2000-2001 [7] compared to more than 21,000 inelectrical engineering and more than 13,000 in mechanicalengineering, the fields with the largest numbers of graduates.Still, BME is often one of the most popular engineeringmajors at the schools that offer it, including Duke, JohnsHopkins, Northwestern, UC San Diego, and Vanderbilt.

Until recently, BME was seen by many as a quantitativepremedical track, but the number of positions in industry hasgrown. The change in the focus of graduates at Northwesternis shown in Figure 2. Seventy percent of BME graduates wentto medical school in the early 1990s, but then the numberdropped steadily to about 35%. Correspondingly, industrialpositions rose from only about 10% to 30% before the eco-nomic downturn of 2001-2002 partially reversed these trends.A relatively constant 15% of students have pursued graduatedegrees. This distribution of outcomes does not necessarilyrepresent all BME programs, but it is not far from the nationalaverage. The national picture was obtained in a survey com-pleted by 45% of the members of the Academic Council of theAmerican Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering,representing 445 B.S. graduates in 2001-2002. Of the gradu-ates who knew their next career step, 21% planned to attendmedical school, 36% were pursuing further studies in engi-neering, and 36% went to industry [8]. In all of these exit sur-veys, the outcomes for up to 30% of the group are unknown atthe time of graduation, but anecdotal evidence suggests thatthe unknowns distribute in about the same proportion as theknowns among the most prevalent outcomes of graduateschool, medical school, and industry. In the AIMBE survey,for instance, about half of the unknowns reported that theywere seeking a job, and if they all found a job in industry,then the total fraction going to industry would be 42%.

The distribution of graduates has important implications.First, at most universities BME programs must prepare theirgraduates for a variety of postgraduate options, and the uncer-tainty of medical school admission suggests that there should

be similar tracks for those intending to enroll in medicalschool as for those intending to work in industry. Second, theincrease in the number of positions in industry for biomedicalengineers means that industry is a constituency that should beconsulted about the curriculum. Preparing graduates for med-ical school is straightforward, in terms of curriculum, becausethe requirements are clearly established. Because none of therequired courses are in engineering, BME programs are, in asense, off the hook. Biomedical engineers do well in medicalschool and have one of the highest medical school acceptancerates of any major (e.g., 57.6% of applicants in the 1999-2000entering class [9]). Preparing BME graduates for graduateschool is largely a question of providing early research train-ing and opportunities, and these generally do not have to beformalized in the coursework. The focus, therefore, should beon preparation for industry, which requires that we address thefollowing questions: What perception does industry have ofbiomedical engineers? What are the needs of industry? Whatniches will biomedical engineers occupy at the B.S. level?Which industries should we consider in our analysis of needs?

Definitions: Biomedical Engineering, Bioengineering,and Biological EngineeringIn order to specify curriculum, we need to specify the field inwhich we are trying to provide an education. Is there a distinctdiscipline we can call biomedical engineering, or is it an in-terdisciplinary field without a core of its own? This requirescomparisons of the definitions of related fields, a digressionfrom our main topic. The discussion here is an expansion ofthat provided by Harris et al. [5].

BME is often regarded as an application of engineeringconcepts, mathematics, analysis, design, and possibly othermethods to unsolved problems in biology and medicine. TheWhitaker Foundation uses an expanded definition that isconsistent with this:

Biomedical engineeringis a discipline that ad-vances knowledge in en-gineering, biology andmedicine, and improveshuman health throughcross-disciplinary activi-ties that integrate the en-gineering sciences withthe biomedical sciencesand clinical practice. Itincludes: 1) The acquisi-tion of new knowledgeand understanding of liv-ing systems through theinnovative and substan-tive application of exper-imental and analyticaltechniques based on theengineering sciences,and 2) The developmentof new devices, algo-rithms, processes andsystems that advance bi-ology and medicine andimprove medical practice

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Fig. 2. Undergraduate outcomes from the Biomedical Engineering Department at NorthwesternUniversity based on senior exit surveys. Over this time the total number of graduates had a gen-erally upward trend from 40 to 60 per year. These data are based on graduates who had aclear path at the time of the survey and are based on a total that excludes approximately 30%of graduates who did not respond or were uncertain.

and health care delivery. As used by the foundation,the term biomedical engineering research is thusdefined in a broad sense: It includes not only the rel-evant applications of engineering to medicine butalso to the basic life sciences. [10]

Until recently, engineering methods had their roots in thephysical sciences and mathematics and were applied primar-ily toward systems-level biology. More recently, some bio-medical engineers in academia have taken a reductionistapproach and are working at the cellular and molecular levels.Molecular and cellular approaches have been comfortably in-tegrated into BME without a change in the biomedical focusof the discipline. For biomedical engineers, the ultimate goalsof gaining a mechanistic cellular or molecular understandingusually relate back to the systems level and a resultant impacton human health.

The term bioengineering often implies a medically relatedengineering, even though the term could encompass all types ofintegration of biology with engineering. The longstanding BMEprograms at a number of universitiesincluding the Universityof Pennsylvania, the University of California at San Diego, Ari-zona State University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago(UIC)are called bioengineering. In 1997, the NIH Bioengi-neering Definition Committee developed a definition that couldhave been used for BME:

Bioengineering integrates physical, chemical, math-ematical, and computational sciences and engineer-ing principles to study biology, medicine, behavior,and health. It advances fundamental concepts; cre-ates knowledge from the molecular to the organ sys-tems levels; and develops innovative biologics,materials, processes, implants, devices, and informa-tics approaches for the prevention, diagnosis, andtreatment of disease, for patient rehabilitation, andfor improving health (NIH Working Definition ofBioengineeringJuly 24, 1997). [11]

The term bioengineeringmeaning BMEis used inthe title of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging andBioengineering, created in 2000, and in the cross-instituteNIH Bioengineering Consortium, BECON. Note that theabove definitions for both BME and BE use the word biol-ogy, but all the examples given are pertinent to human health,and the tacit understanding is that we are dealing with aspects

of animal biology that will eventually give some insight intohuman health and disease.

Until recently, there has been little confusion about theterms bioengineering and biomedical engineering, be-cause they were essentially synonymous. It has been noted,however, that the field is evolving from one in which therewere a few bridges between the separate fields of biology andengineering to one in which biology and engineering are fullyintegrated in the curriculum [6]. It is possible that the termbioengineering will be generally recognized as the term de-scribing the more integrated approach, and this would also becompletely consistent with the NIH definition. One programthat has identified some of the principles that make engineer-ing based on life sciences different from engineering based onphysical and chemical sciences is the Bioengineering Depart-ment at SUNY Binghamton [12]. The philosophy is that thereis a core of ideas essential to living systems that bioengineerswill understand and use but which other engineers typicallywill not. These revolve around the concepts of self-organiza-tion, self-replication, nonlinearity, and emergent propertiesthat arise from the assembly of cells and tissues into complexliving systems.

BME is not the only engineering field that relates to biology.Two other branchesmore like trunks, reallyare representedin the two nonbiomedical programs supported by the NSF Divi-sion of Bioengineering and Environmental Systems. One ofthese major efforts is devoted to Biochemical Engineering andBiotechnology (BEB). NSF states that its effort in BEB

advances the knowledge base of basic engineering andscientific principles of bioprocessing at both the mo-lecular level (biomolecular engineering) and the man-ufacturing scale (bioprocess engineering). Manyproposals supported by BEB programs are involvedwith the development of enabling technologies forproduction of a wide range of biotechnology productsand services by making use of enzymes, mammalian,microbial, plant, and/or insect cells to produce usefulbiochemicals, pharmaceuticals, cells, cellular compo-nents, or cell composites (tissues). [13]

The core of this is chemical engineering, but one can alsosee aspects of BME in this statement. The second focus atNSF is Environmental Engineering and Technology (EET).Much of this is not biological at all, but the biological aspectsare found in the statement:

IEEE ENGINEERING IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY MAGAZINE JULY/AUGUST 200334

Is there a distinct discipline we

can call biomedical

engineering, or is it an

interdisciplinary field without a

core of its own?

This program also supports research on innovativebiological, chemical, and physical processes usedalone or as components of engineered systems to re-store the usefulness of polluted land, water, and airresources. [14]

An additional trunk is biological engineering. The Institutefor Biological Engineering (IBE) defines this in the followingway:

Biological Engineering is the biology-based engi-neering discipline that integrates life sciences withengineering in the advancement and application offundamental concepts of biological systems frommolecular to ecosystem levels. [15]

The type of biological engineering described by IBE origi-nated in departments with a focus on the engineering associ-ated with the agricultural aspects of biology and on biologicalresource engineering; the use and management of naturalproducts beyond agriculture. The definition above gives littlehint of this, suggesting that this field is undergoing a transfor-mation and becoming broader. One of the authors who hasstated a philosophy to direct biological engineering is ArthurJohnson, who has written that biological engineering shouldbe a science-based rather than an applications-based disci-pline, with broad training in biology and engineering scienceat the undergraduate level, rather than a focus on applications.The assumption is that most students should go on to graduatedegrees where they will choose specific application areas,such as BME, to study in detail [16], [17]. While its origins aredifferent, related ideas appear to underlie the new BiologicalEngineering Division at MIT [18]. If it were stated in one sen-tence, an MIT definition of biological engineering might lookvery much like the IBE definition. The philosophy of the newMIT division is that insights and rapid advances in under-standing biology at the cellular and molecular levels have setthe stage for making biology an additional core science under-lying a particular type of engineering. This would add biologyto the mathematics, physics, and chemistry that now underlieall of engineering. This is similar to the ideas behind BE atBinghamton but, at MIT, BME is explicitly described as justone application of biological engineering.

These approaches to biological engineering are creatingnovel programs, and one might call this the new biologicalengineering. In many cases, however, the term biologicalengineering still connotes agricultural and biological re-sources engineering rather than a broad scope that could in-clude BME. This alternate view of biological engineering andBME, which sets them as application-oriented equals, is alsoreasonable. There are common elements among this tradi-tional biological engineering and BME, thanks to the evolu-tionary conservation of biological mechanisms at themolecular and cellular levels. But the systemsor assembliesof cellson which these fields focus are different, and this islikely to keep training in biological engineering and BMEseparate for some time. Systems-level biology is not a simpleapplication of the lower-level principles but involves com-plexity and emergent properties; learning systems biologytakes as much room in the curriculum as molecular biology,and there is not time to learn multiple systems in any detail.Humans are the system that is critical to biomedical engi-

neers, while ecology and plant physiology are more likely tobe the province of traditional biological engineers. The fieldsare also likely to remain distinct because the career paths ofbiological engineers and biomedical engineers are generallydifferent. Education in all the systems is therefore not onlyimpractical but may also be unnecessary. Venturing out on alimb, one can assert further that education in biochemical en-gineeringthe other major related fieldneed not cover bi-ology at any systems level, because its practitioners study orexploit primarily cellular processes. Perhaps this is what setsthe boundary between biochemical engineering and the otherfields.

The NSF has charged the VaNTH ERC with working onbioengineering educational technologies, but there are toomany complexities to tackle curriculum in all of the biol-ogy-related engineering fields at once. BME, BE, biochemi-cal engineering, and biological engineering overlap but can bedistinguished. The term bioengineering was once inter-changeable with biomedical engineering, but its meaningmay be evolving to describe a new biology-based discipline.The work of VaNTH is primarily in BME at present, but as theforegoing analysis indicates, other biologically related engi-neering disciplines are on the radar screen. The IBE is under-taking a parallel project to evaluate and define the core ofbiological engineering as VaNTH is trying to define curricu-lum in BME [19]. There may emerge a set of fundamentalsthat undergird many of the interactions between biology andengineering. As this work progresses, one forum in whichthese different fields may come together is the American In-stitute for Medical and Biological Engineering [8], whoseCouncil of Societies and Academic Council attempt to fosterdiscussion on education.

Industrial Needs and Opportunities for BioengineersIf we focus on BME, the question of which industries? toconsult regarding educational needs becomes clearer. One candefine at least three segments of industry that are relevant. Thefirst includes the biomedical instrumentation companies:those engaged in production of imaging instrumentation,implantable electronic instrumentation, internal and externalartificial organs, hospital and point-of-care diagnostic instru-mentation, and therapeutic modalities. The second is the phar-maceutical and drug delivery-oriented companies. These firsttwo categories are beginning to merge. For example, at leastthree companiesincluding Abbott Laboratories, the CordisDivision of Johnson & Johnson, and Boston Scientificareall seeking approval for coronary artery stents that releasedrugs to inhibit restenosis caused by smooth muscle cell pro-liferation. Another group of companies are engaged in tissueengineering [20] and other cell-based therapies. At present,this comprises a very small part of the job market forbiomedical engineers, but it is likely to grow [20].

These companies all would seem to be ideal employersfor biomedical engineers, the only engineers who have adeep appreciation of the complexities of physiological sys-tems. There is no survey of companies to point to, but the au-thors observationbased on conversations over the last fiveyears with members of the advisory boards of the Biomedi-cal Engineering Department and the McCormick School ofEngineering and Applied Science at Northwestern, and in-teractions with industry panels sponsored by VaNTH and bythe Chicago Universities Bioengineering Industry Conference

IEEE ENGINEERING IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY MAGAZINE JULY/AUGUST 2003 35

(www.cubic-online.org)is that many managers and indus-trial laboratory directors do appreciate that there are goodreasons to hire biomedical engineers for certain positionsand for the unique skills that they bring to the table. Severaldifferent capabilities of biomedical engineers are mentionedin these forums, but among the most consistent are the abilityto speak the languages of engineering and medicine, a famil-iarity with human physiology and pathophysiology, and edu-cational breadth. (Breadth may contribute to the ability tolead teams of engineers; BMEs understand more of chemicalengineering than electrical engineers do as well as more ofelectrical engineering than chemical engineers do.) One canpoint to biomedical engineers with almost all job titles, andthe situation is continuing to improve as more biomedicalengineers are promoted within their companies. However,new BME B.S. graduates often have a difficult time findingjobs, especially ones that utilize their specific skills, and theunderstanding that biomedical engineers are the right engi-neers is not universal. Even if this is recognized at higher lev-els, it has often not propagated down to the human resourceslevel where initial decisions about hiring are done. (In fact,placement offices on college campuses may not be suitablyattuned to BME, either.) In addition, the number of biomedi-cal engineers hired by even large companies is modest, so lo-cating jobs for graduates can be difficult. Few, if any,companies define themselves as BME companies and, al-though the prospects for biomedical engineers will continueto improve, there will still be a need for many mechanical,chemical, and electrical engineers in the healthcare industry.

Among industry professionals who are opposed to or un-certain about hiring biomedical engineers, one consistentlyhears two themes or complaints. The first theme is that indus-try does not know what a biomedical engineer is, whereas theyknow what characterizes a chemical or mechanical engineer.The contradiction is that the curricula of those fields are notuniform across universities, either, but industrys perceptionis probably correct that a core of knowledge and skills isshared by all chemical or electrical engineers. As a result ofnot being sure of a biomedical engineers skills, industry is re-luctant to hire one and risk learning later that the new hire didnot know how to apply some important principle. The secondfear is that biomedical engineers are too broadly trained anddont have depth in any engineering area. Some programshave tried to address this by instituting tracks at the under-graduate level, which may be helpful; but, among more en-lightened members of industry, it is sometimes precisely thebreadth of biomedical engineers that is cited as their advan-tage. Therefore, it is now questionable that tracks provide afull answer. (As an aside, we know from experience thattracks also force faculty to teach many different undergradu-ate courses.) These are the issues that we in academia need toaddress: the perception that BMEs lack a common curriculumand that their breadth necessarily causes a limitation on thedepth of their engineering abilities. To some extent this meansthat we need better communication between universities andindustry about the capabilities of current graduates, but wealso need to work on the curriculum.

A Content Core for BMEBME programs exhibit a rich diversity, based largely on theresearch areas of their faculty. This diversity in programs isdesirable. It is in the spirit of the ABET Engineering Criteria

2000, which encourages programs to define their own set ofobjectives for educating students, and then show that these ob-jectives are being met and that work is being done by a processof continuous feedback to improve curriculum [21]. Unfortu-nately, this flexibility does not help industry define the capa-bilities of a biomedical engineer. The approach of the VaNTHcurriculum project is that programs do not have to agree on theentire curriculum but should agree on some fraction of whatbiomedical engineers should know. We are seeking a core setof knowledge and skills that we call key content. The keycontent could be covered in different ways at differentuniversities.

One level of key content is in math and basic sciences;math through differential equations; a year of physics, includ-ing mechanics, electricity and magnetism, and wave phenom-ena; and a year of chemistry are assumed. The amount oforganic chemistry, the amount and types of biology, and thelevel of computer proficiency expected of B.S. graduates areunsettled issues. It is especially important to define the key en-gineering content that BME programs have more control over.It seems fairly clear that all biomedical engineers need toknow something about some topics such as data acquisition,signal analysis, instrumentation, statistics, mechanics, andtransport, but we will have to determine what the individualtopics should be at some relatively fine grain size. Whetherparts of other fieldssuch as materials science, imaging,etc.should be key topics remains to be determined. Some ofthe concepts proposed by those working on biological engi-neering or BE may prove to be important for biomedical engi-neers. We will also need to solicit feedback on the extent towhich key engineering topics should be integrated with biol-ogy, and to what extent they can be taught separately. It wouldseem that combining engineering with biology should bemore motivating and, therefore, provide learning gains forstudents who wish to solve biomedical problems. Integrationmay also provide some educational efficiency and allow thecoverage of engineering principles in the context ofappropriate applications.

In addition to defining topics, it is necessary to specifywhat a student can do with each one. Inert knowledge is notvaluable; it will be the dynamic application of key conceptsthat will count for the student. This means that it is importantto attach the appropriate verb to each concept to indicate alevel of proficiency expected. Know about ac coupling willnot be an element of key content, but Explain the effect of accoupling on signal acquisition or Design a high pass filtermight be. We expect to choose the verbs indicating profi-ciency from taxonomies of learning goals, such as Blooms[22] or Biggs [23] taxonomy.

The key content will provide a way for universities togauge whether they are providing an education consistentwith what (we hope) will become a national standard. Thiscould be supported, for instance, by the Biomedical Engineer-ing Society and/or the Council of Chairs of Bioengineeringand Biomedical Engineering. We anticipate that formulationand adoption of the key content should make it clear that bio-medical engineers know engineering fundamentals as well asanyone else, and that they typically can use the fundamentalsin more areas. We believe that this will allow industry to seethe value of hiring biomedical engineers.

At some universities it will probably not be necessary tochange curriculum content markedly. Universities should

IEEE ENGINEERING IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY MAGAZINE JULY/AUGUST 200336

cover the key content, but they would not have to cover thesefundamentals in the same way. They need not fit into courseswith specific names but could be spread across the curriculumin whatever way made sense locally. Universities could, ofcourse, choose to ignore some of the recommendations. Webelieve that it will eventually be possible to arrive at a com-pliance score that reflects the extent to which a universityfollows the recommendations for key content. Some of thekey topics could be covered in elective classes, which studentswith a strong desire to work in industry would be advised totake. Students who have other career paths in mind couldchoose to ignore parts of the recommendations.

Once the key topics are identified, there will be consider-able room left in the curriculum for each program to educateits students in specialized ways that take advantage of localexpertise and provide depth in specific domains, such asbiomechanics or optics.

Process IssuesOthers have considered what the BME curriculum should en-tail, so we are not starting from scratch. Among the sourcesthat we are consulting to create the key content are: TheWhitaker Foundation Educational Summit documents [24];papers about BME curriculum, e.g., Desai and Magin [25];texts about BE; and our domain personnel throughoutVaNTH. However, no one has previously tried to assemblecurriculum at the necessary depth and/or to determinewhether there can be consensus. Once an initial list is assem-bled, we will use a Delphi method [26] to refine it. Essentially,this is an iterative community-based process for identifyingimportant concepts or elements in any field, making sure thatall voices are heard, bringing ideas forward, and seekingagreement. We will use a Web-based survey instrument to al-low voting on whether each element should be considered apart of the key content. The survey will also solicit ideas aboutwhat is missing. We will asknot only for a rating of theimportance of having eachtopic in the list but also whatlevel of proficiency shouldbe expected at the B.S. level;that is, what verbs should beused with each content ele-ment. The list will be refinedbased on feedback and sentfor another round of votingand comment. Two or threeiterations are expected togenerate enough consensusthat we can publicize thecontent, seek endorsementby professional organiza-tions, and begin to use it as ayardstick for evaluating cur-riculum. A project calledCDIO (conceive, design, im-plement, operate), based inthe Aeronautics andAstronautics Department atMIT, has provided a modelof the process of specifying

both content and proficiency [27].We will solicit votes from at least 150 reviewers with

roughly equal representation from several groups: first, fac-ulty from around the country; second, recent alumni in indus-try; and third, industry managers in a position to supervisebiomedical engineers. It is clear that reviewers must work ac-tively to avoid being parochial and look beyond their ownbackgrounds and/or product line. The idea is to find the keyconcepts for all BMEs.

Two Sides to CurriculumCompetency and ContentUp to this point we have focused on content or domainknowledge. It is also important to consider the core com-petencies, as shown in Figure 3. In any forum in which in-dustry lists the characteristics of employees, nontechnicalskills are placed high on the list. At the very top appear tobe communication skills, including writing, presentation,and listening, and teamwork skills. VaNTH has definedadditional competencies related to design, ethical aware-ness, people and project management, and lifelong learn-ing and is developing a taxonomy of these corecompetencies. These skills can be regarded as orthogonalto the domains of BME. All biomedical engineers need allthe core competencies, and they will apply them in onlyslightly different ways in their different areas of endeavor.The orthogonality is a VaNTH construct, but the recogni-tion of the importance of core competencies is wide-spread. Most of ABETs a-k outcomes expected ofengineering graduates enumerate these skills, but only ingeneral terms [28]. Three quarters of the topics in theCDIO syllabus for the education of Aero/Astro engi-neers is essentially a taxonomy of the core competencies[27]. While other efforts have been made to list the corecompetencies, VaNTH intends to go farther in

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Fig. 3. The two types of content that have to be blended to create a curriculum-domain knowl-edge and core competencies. The goal of the VaNTH curriculum project is to define and seekagreement on the portion of biomedical engineering content knowledge that all biomedicalengineering graduates should obtain (key content). Advanced topics differ by university and thestudents area of specialization. The categories of core competencies are the working subjectheadings used at present by VaNTH. The center column illustrates the point that integration ofthe two streams may be the best method of learning.

operationalizing the elements, providing examples of howto integrate them with domain content, and devising meth-ods to assess whether students actually have these skills.

Other Elements of Curricular AdviceThe VaNTH ERC has created a Web site [2] that serves as itsrepository of curricular advice. The key content and corecompetency projects will use this as their vehicle for dissemi-nation. In addition, the Web site has several other elementsthat are intended to help programs build or revise curricula ina way that is consistent with ABET guidelines and with the re-search in learning sciences that comprises much of the workof VaNTH [5]. VaNTH believes that the BME curriculumshould support the development of adaptive expertise, so thatgraduates can transfer their knowledge to new problems, learnfrom their mistakes, and pursue new opportunities and newjobs. The Web site currently contains information on the state of the art of curricula in BE na-

tionally information on existing undergraduate BE curricula at

the VaNTH schools links to Web and text references and resources for curric-

ular planners principles and recommendations for the creation of new

or revised BE curricula. This includes recommendationsabout both content and pedagogy.

The Web site is an evolving resource, and feedback on it iswelcome.

AcknowledgmentsI thank the many colleagues who continue to shape the pointsof view represented here, whether they realized it or not, in-cluding Drs. Thomas Harris, David Gatchell, Suzanne Olds,Kenneth McLeod, Douglas Lauffenburger, Jack Linehan,Richard Magin, Penny Hirsch, and members of the Council ofChairs of Bioengineering and Biomedical Engineering andthe Academic Council of the American Institute of Medicaland Biological Engineering. This work is supported by theNational Science Foundation EEC-9876363.

Robert A. Linsenmeier received his B.S. inchemical engineering from Carnegie MellonUniversity and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees inBME from Northwestern University. After al-most four years as an assistant research physi-ologist at the University of California, SanFrancisco, he returned to Northwestern,where he has been on the faculty for 20 years.

He is a professor in the Biomedical Engineering Department, ofwhich he served as chair from 1997 to 2002, and of neurobiologyand physiology in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences,where he was director of the Integrated Science Program from1993 to 1997. He has published more than 50 papers on mamma-lian retinal electrophysiology, microenvironment, and metabo-lism, with an emphasis on oxygen transport. Since 1999 he hasbeen engaged in education research through the VaNTH ERC, ofwhich he is associate director and leader of the BioengineeringDomain Thrust. In 2002 he was chair of the Academic Council ofthe American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering. Heis a fellow of the American Institute of Medical and BiologicalEngineering and a senior member of the Biomedical EngineeringSociety.

Address for Correspondence: Robert A. Linsenmeier,Biomedical Engineering Department, 2145 SheridanRoad, Evanston, IL 60208-3107 USA. Phone: +1 847 4913043. Fax: 847-491-4928. E-mail: r-linsenmeier@north-western.edu.

References[1] Vanderbilt-Northwestern-Texas-Harvard/MIT Engineering Research Center forBioengineering Educational Technologies. (2003, Mar. 25). Available:http://www.vanth.org/[2] VaNTH Curriculum Project. (2003, Mar. 25). http://www.vanth.org/curriculum[3] Council of Chairs of Bioengineering and Biomedical Engineering. (2003, Feb.28). http://www.coc-bme.org[4] The Whitaker Foundation. (2003, Mar. 7). http://www.whitaker.org[5] T.R Harris, J.D. Bransford, and S.D. Brophy, Roles for learning sciences andlearning technologies in biomedical engineering education: A review of recent ad-vances, Annu. Rev. Biomed. Eng., vol. 4, pp. 29-48, 2002.[6] P.G. Katona, The Whitaker Foundation: The end will be just the beginning,IEEE Trans. Med. Imaging, vol. 21, pp. 845-849, Aug. 2002.[7] Databytes, ASEE Prism, vol. 12, p. 16, Sept. 2002.[8] The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. (2003, Mar. 7).http://www.aimbe.org[9] Association of American Medical Colleges, Medical School Admission Require-ments, United States and Canada, 2001-2002. Washington, DC: Association ofAmerican Medical Colleges, 2001, p. 30.[10] Whitaker Foundation. (2003, Feb. 28). Definition of Biomedical Engineering.[Online]. Available: http://www.whitaker.org/glance/definition.html[11] National Institutes of Health Bioengineering Consortium. (2003, Mar. 1).Available: http://www.becon.nih.gov/becon.htm[12] K.J. McLeod, D.C. Gause, and C.B. Laramee. (2003, Mar. 13). Development ofbioengineering as a science based discipline. [Online}. Available:http://bioeng.binghamton.edu/FoundationsofBioengineering.pdf[13] Division of Bioengineering and Sciences. (2003, Mar. 1). Available:http://www.eng.nsf.gov/bes/[14] Division of Bioengineering and Sciences. (2003, Mar. 1). Environmental Engi-neering and Technology. Available: http://www.eng.nsf.gov/bes/Programs/Environ-mental_Engineering_Basi/environmental_engineering_basi.htm[15] The Institute of Biological Engineering. (2003, Mar. 1). Available:http://www.ibeweb.org/[16] A.T. Johnson and A.M. Phillips, Philosophical foundations of biological engi-neering, J. Eng. Educ., vol. 84, pp. 311-318, Oct. 1995.[17] A.T. Johnson. (2003, Mar. 13). Bioengineering in the US; The rush is on. [On-line]. Available: www.ibeweb.org/johnson.pdf[18] Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (2003, Mar. 13). Biological engineer-ing: The new fusion of biology and engineering at MIT. [Online]. Available:http://web.mit.edu/be/about.html[19] Institute for Biological Engineering. (2003, Mar. 1). Workshop on DNA of Bio-logical Engineering: Defining the Body of Knowledge for the Discipline, 2001.[Online]. Available: http://www.ibeweb.org/publications.htm[20] M.J. Lysaght and J. Reyes, The growth of tissue engineering, Tissue Eng., vol.7, pp. 485-493, Oct. 2001.[21] Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. (2003, Feb. 23). Accredi-tation Policy and Procedure Manual, 2001. [Online]. Available:http://www.abet.org/images/2002-03APPM.pdf.[22] B.S. Bloom, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. New York: LongmansGreen, 1956.[23] J.B. Biggs, Teaching for Quality Learning at University. London: Society forResearch into Higher Education/Open University Press, 1999, pp. 33-51.[24] Whitaker Foundation. (2003, Mar. 13). Biomedical Engineering EducationalSummit Meeting, 2000. [Online]. Available: http://summit.whitaker.org/[25] T.A. Desai and R.L. Magin, A cure for bioengineering? A new undergraduatecore curriculum, J. Eng. Educ., vol. 90, pp. 231-238, Apr. 2001.[26] H.A. Linstone and M. Turoff, Eds. (1975). The Delphi Method: Techniques andApplications [Online]. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Available:http://www.is.njit.edu/pubs/delphibook/[27] CDIO Initiative. (2003, Mar.). MIT CDIO Report #1: The CDIO Syllabus: AStatement of Goals for Undergraduate Engineering Education, 2001. [Online].Available: http://www.cdio.org/cdio_syllabus_rept/CDIO_SYLLABUS_RPRT_.pdf[28] Summary of ABET Criteria. (2003, Mar.). Available: http://www.vanth.org/curriculum/curr_abet.asp

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