From the Editor a recommendation to biomedical engineering students John Enderle
am writing this letter while on vacation with my wife and children at my in-laws’ home on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The weather is picture perfect, and I am blessed with wonderful in-laws. The kids are old enough to pretty much do as they please: taking bike rides, jogging the country roads, or sojourning to the nearby beaches, which leaves time for my wife and me to be with each other doing the things we like to do. Even though this is a vacation, during the solitude, my mind seems to drift to that four-letter word ABET (the American Board for Engineering Technology) and how to cope with a greatly expanding undergraduate biomedical engineering (BME) student population. Most BME programs attract the
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best students at their universities, just as the University of Conneticut (UConn) does. With this comes a double-edged sword. These students are gifted, and they want to be challenged and explore alternative learning experiences. As I have previously indicated in past columns, I have spent a great deal of time setting up study abroad programs. This was the number one priority of my students, closely followed by internships and research experiences in labs. I know many BME programs offer National Science Foundation research experiences for undergraduates during the summer, and many undergraduates take advantage of them. It is certainly a wonderful opportunity for students to explore opportunities at other campuses.
IEEE ENGINEERING IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY MAGAZINE Editor-in-Chief John Enderle University of Connecticut Editorial Board Hojjat Adeli The Ohio State University Howard I. Bassen Food and Drug Administration Krzysztof J. Cios Univ. of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center Pouran Faghri University of Connecticut Limin Luo Southeast University, Nanjing Jasjit Suri Marconi Medical Systems, Inc. Eugene Veklerov Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Associate Editors A Look At Jean-Louis Coatrieux University of Rennes, France Book Reviews Paul King Vanderbilt University
Cellular & Tissue Engineering Maria Papadaki P&G Italian Research Center, Italy Clinical Engineering Stephen L. Grimes GENTECH COMAR Ruth Douglas Miller Temple University Emerging Technologies Dorin Panescu Boston Scientific Faces and Places Andrew Szeto San Diego State University Genomics Harold (Skip) Garner University of Texas Southwestern Medical Ctr. Government Affairs Luis Kun National Defense University Industry Affairs Semahat Demir National Science Foundation Issues in Ethics John Fielder Villanova University
International News John Webster University of Wisconsin, Madison Patents Maurice M. Klee Fairfield, CT Point of View Gail Baura CardioDynamics San Diego, CA Regulatory Issues Robert Munzner DoctorDevice.com Grace Bartoo Instrumentation for Science and Medicine Retrospectroscope L.A. Geddes Purdue University Senior Design Jay Goldberg Marquette University Society News Barbara Oakley Oakland University Student Activities Lisa Lazareck Oxford University, U.K.
With all of the opportunities available for the undergraduates comes the dreaded “recommendation letter.” Last year, I felt that I wrote thousands of these letters, but in reality, it was less than 100. Like most, I try to include some personal characteristics of the candidate along with classroom performance and grade point average. I often wonder how well our undergraduates are able to perform in areas that are not part of their previous academics and how well can they learn new topics “just in time.” Tied in with the issue of recommendation letters is the issue of ABET’s focus on life-long leaning. BME programs need to demonstrate that their students (continued on page 7)
IEEE PERIODICALS MAGAZINES DEPARTMENT
Managing Editor Desirée de Myer Art Director Janet Dudar Asst. Art Director Gail A. Schnitzer Business Development Manager Susan Schneiderman +1 732 562 3946
[email protected] Fax: +1 732 981 1855 Senior Advertising Production Coordinator Cathline Tanis Production Director Robert Smrek Editorial Director Dawn Melley Staff Director, Publishing Operations Fran Zappulla
Editorial Correspondence: Address to John D. Enderle, Program Director for Biomedical Engineering, University of Connecticut, Room 223 B, 260 Glenbrook Road, U-2157, Storrs, CT 06269-2157 USA. Voice: +1 860 486 5521. Fax: +1 860 486 2500. E-mail:
[email protected]. Indexed in: Current Contents (Clinical Practice), Engineering Index (Bioengineering Abstracts), Inspec, Excerpta Medica, Index Medicus, MEDLINE, and listed in Citation Index. All materials in this publication represent the views of the authors only and not those of the EMBS or IEEE.
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IEEE ENGINEERING IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY MAGAZINE
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2005
qualified speakers for the Society's Distinguished Lecturer Program. The Committee is particularly seeking preeminent speakers from the international community and from industry, so please contact Laura Wolf at the EMBS Executive Office (l.wolf@ieee. org) if you have a suitable nominee as a distinguished lecturer. As with the Chapter Activities Program, student clubs are eligible for up to US$500 and chapters for up to US$1,000 in matching funds. The matching ratio is 2:1, with EMBS providing up to twice the amount raised from some other source. For the most part, EMBS funding will not be available to support the attendance of distinguished lecturers as keynote speakers at EMBS or non-EMBS conferences. The EMBS Conference Committee, however, does have a small amount of funding available for technical sponsorship (cosponsorship) of EMBS keynote speakers at conferences where it is considered helpful for promoting the international profile of EMBS. More information is available
at http://129.94.131.101/embs/distlect. html#dlguide. For both programs, only a limited amount of funding is available per year, so please get your requests in early. EMBS funding is available only to EMBS chapters, EMBS student branch chapters, or EMBS student clubs. RERC Senior Design Competition Results
Nineteen teams from 16 universities submitted entries into the 2004–2005 Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC) on Accessible Medical Instrumentation Senior Design Competition in three areas: accessible weight scale, accessible syringe dosing, and accessible ergometer. Details of the competition are listed at http://www.rerc-ami.org/rcw-sandbox/projects/d/2/2/year2/. Universities involved in the competition include: Catholic University, Washington, D.C.; Marquette University, Wisconsin; North Carolina State University; Texas A&M; University of California–San Diego; University of
Connecticut; University of Georgia; University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; University of Rochester, New York; University of Tennessee; University of Toledo, Ohio; University of Vermont; University of Wisconsin; University of Wyoming; Vanderbilt University, Tennessee; and Virginia Tech. The Web sites for all of the projects in the competition will be posted at the RERC Web site. Eleven judges from government, industry and academia participated in the competition, with at least four judges evaluating each entry. Six teams received awards in the competition. ➤ First Place: University of Rochester (Accessible Ergometer) ➤ Second Place (two tied, top in their category): Marquette University (Accessible Syringe Dosing) and Texas A&M (Accessible Weight Scale) ➤ Third Place (three tied, second in their category): University of Wisconsin (Accessible Ergometer), Catholic University (Accessible Weight Scale) and University of Connecticut (Accessible Syringe Dosing)
From the Editor (continued from page 4) have this quality and recognize the need to keep honing their skills throughout their lives. If faculty cannot instill this aptitude in our undergraduates while they are with us, how can we make this a priority to our students after graduation? One easy way to do this is to encourage our undergraduates to join a professional society—such as the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) or BME societies in the United States and others around the world—as a student member and read the literature provided by the society. My goals for IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Magazine have been to provide a range of topics that covers the breadth of BME and to provide avenues for life-long learning for the entire membership. Certainly, students reading the magazine will be IEEE ENGINEERING IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY MAGAZINE
engaged in life-long learning, and membership in a professional society is one way to measure life-long learning for ABET. Of course, life-long learning also takes place by attending conferences, participating in seminars hosted by the student chapters, and, especially, taking senior design classes. I often have students complain while taking senior design that some aspects of their senior design project were not covered in the classroom setting. My response is usually, “welcome to the real world,” and “did you know that this topic was covered in IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Magazine last year, and how come you didn’t read about it?” So, I have decided that I will no longer write recommendation letters for students who are not a student member of a professional BME society. In reali-
ty, how can I write a positive recommendation for someone who does not really want to keep up with the fastmoving field of BME? Moreover, I also get requests from faculty and other professional colleagues about writing a tenure decision letter. My response will be the same: no professional society, no recommendation letter. I may have been in the sun too long while on vacation, and I may be slightly—or hugely—demented about this recommendation letter decision. If I have had my brain fried, like a clam, and you disagree with me, please let me know. If you feel the same way I do, please encourage our undergraduate students to become student members of a professional society. Until the next time, John Enderle SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2005
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