From the Editor wishing the best for everyone in the new year! John Enderle
I
wish to extend my best wishes to all for a Happy New Year! This year is shaping up to be an exciting one with great issues like ‘‘Rhythms from Seconds to Days: Part 2’’ put together by guest editors Jean Clairambault and Dirk Hoyer. Following this issue, there will be issues on quality of life technology and MRI-compatible robotics. For the past year, I have been describing our efforts in moving the University of Connecticut’s (UConn’s) biomedical engineering (BME) program through the accreditation process. We had our visit in October and were successful. In the weeks up to the visit, all i’s were dotted and t’s crossed. Also, faculty and students were prepared for the visit. It was explained to the faculty that one of Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MEMB.2007.913846
the roles of the program evaluator interview with the faculty is to facilitate an understanding of the program, provide an opportunity to clarify items in the self-study, and probe for further details. In a sense, the program is going through a test to see whether we have met the minimum qualifications. As this is a test of a sort, each faculty member needs to prepare for the visit. They were asked to review and be aware of the BME selfstudy. We reviewed our program educational objectives, program outcomes, and other aspects of the program. I gave the faculty and students questions that I normally ask during an Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) visit and discussed answers. An awareness of what students should know and be able to do upon graduation, and their familiarity with program
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 Biomedical Technologies 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 Nenad Bursac Duke University Clinical Engineering Stephen L. Grimes GENTECH COMAR Richard A. Tell Richard Tell Associates, Inc. Emerging Technologies Dorin Panescu St. Jude Medical 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 ot View Gail Baura Keck Graduate Institute, Claremont, 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 Jorge Monzon Universidad Nacional del Nordeste Student Activities Jennifer Flexman University of Washington
outcomes was emphasized. Faculty were made aware of the process to achieve the program outcomes and how they are documented, who maintains and improves the process, and how each faculty is involved in the process. Here are some of my questions that I ask faculty when going on an ABET visit. ä How is the program measuring success in achieving program educational objectives? ä Describe your interaction with the program director. ä Describe your role in advising students. ä Are the laboratories in good shape and what is your role in them? ä Is there a laboratory plan for future expansion and replacement? (continued on page 5)
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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, RECAL Information Services, 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
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2008
Letters to the Editor bridging the gap between industry and academia
T
he second sentence in the ‘‘Point of View’’ column in the September/October 2007 issue of IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Magazine, ‘‘. . . if the engineer . . . did not want to become a researcher, I had difficulty answering this question,’’ brings out a point, which I believe is a growing problem in academia. The gap and lack of understanding between the industry and academia is growing. We can barely find useful engineers fresh from university anymore, which was very different 20 years ago. They are good in research and theory but have never built an electronic circuit with their own hands. Many can’t even solder, and if I find that out in an interview, I usually advise my client not to hire. Your institute offers courses such as medical devices. Don’t let that end with some PowerPoint slides. Get some parts, soldering irons, scopes, and other tools, and let the students actually build an ECG or something similar with their
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MEMB.2007.911403
From the Editor
own hands and not on a MATLAB screen or SPICE simulator. Likewise, the professors should come out of their ivory towers and talk to research and development (R&D) people in the industry. Go out there, see what their work is like (that’s what many of your students will have to do later), what their concerns are, and what they think of freshly degreed engineers. Don’t talk to the HR folks, talk to the folks in R&D, with the emphasis not on research but on development because that’s what ultimately brings in the revenue and, consequently, that is going to be what most engineers will later do. Joerg Schulze-Clewing Cameron Park, California Dear Joerg, Thank you for your comments. I completely agree with you. My medical device course includes a series of labs that introduce the students to clinical applications as well as course concepts. For example, in the echocardiography lab, each group of three students learns how to measure stroke volume and ejection
fraction using a Sonosite MicroMaxx hand-carried ultrasound unit. One student acts as the patient, and the other two switch between positioning the ultrasound transducer on the patient and manning the console. While it takes about 30–45 min of trial and error before they are able to see the parasternal long axis view of the heart, they are consistently awed by the pulsing of mitral leaflets. There is no better demonstration of the acoustic impedance of tissues than student frustration in always pushing gel out from under the transducer and having to reapply more gel to restore the image. In another lab, they build a cardiograph and determine the frequency at which aliasing begins while monitoring a fellow student. I do not use any MATLAB simulations. In terms of professors talking to R&D people, that is what my school has been doing in hiring me and other colleagues back from the medical device and pharmaceutical industries. Although I rarely write about it in my column, I do have much experience in development, both in the device and telecom industries. Gail Baura
(continued from page 4)
ä Is the budget sufficient to run the
program? ä Describe the quality of your students. ä Do you have sufficient travel funds to keep current? ä Describe the morale of the faculty. ä What is the student to faculty ratio? ä Describe how you keep current in your profession. ä How are probability and statistics used in the curriculum? ä Are computing resources sufficient? I also ask questions that are in the ABET training material. For example, questions can be asked for assessment and results. ä Are data being collected for each outcome?
IEEE ENGINEERING IN MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY MAGAZINE
ä What is measured? How often? ä How do you use the data you collect? ä Does your evaluation provide the
ä ä
ä ä ä
information that you need to improve the program? What is your feedback process to continuously improve the program? What actions have been taken to improve the program as a result of the assessment process? How do you demonstrate that outcomes are achieved? What is your evaluation of the quality of the program? What evidence do you have to demonstrate that your efforts to improve the program are producing results?
ä Based
on your evaluation of assessment data, what are your plans for additional improvement? We also provided the program evaluator with all student transcripts for the previous review and full analysis to request accreditation retroactive to the previous year. A program is also supposed to have sample student work. I hope that my experiences with accreditation prove helpful to other programs going through a visit and that people from industry understand what the accreditation process is all about. Until the next time, John Enderle
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2008
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