What is biomedical engineering? | with the University of Sussex

Learn about the MSc programme at the University of Sussex. We discuss the curriculum, employment prospects, and the importance of gender diversity in STEM

Participants

• Emily Slade - podcast producer and host, Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ»ÆƬ
• Dr Carlo Tiseo - lecturer in engineering at the University of Sussex

Transcript

Dr Carlo Tiseo: This course is for any one that has an engineering background in electronics and mechanical engineering or chemical engineering as well, and for physicists

Emily Slade: Hello and welcome back to Future You, the podcast brough to you by graduate careers experts, Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ»ÆƬ. I'm your host Emily Slade, and this episode looks at the Biomedical Engineering MSc available from the University of Sussex.

Dr Carlo Tiseo: Hello. I'm  Dr Carlo Tiseo, a lecturer in engineering at the University of Sussex, the School of Engineering and Informatics. I will be the course convener for the MSc in biomedical engineering, which means I will be in charge of the course and on the management of the course myself. I'm a biomedical engineer. I graduate in Italy, and then I went to do my PhD Singapore in robotics. Then after a period of research at the University of Edinburgh, I moved to Sussex in 2021. 

Emily Slade: That's so cool you've been all over the place. So to begin with, what is biomedical engineering? 

Dr Carlo Tiseo: So biomedical engineering is a subject that emerged in the 1960s and 70s as a response to the demand of profession that were interdisciplinary, that were able to handle the machines within the hospital, and so be able to provide service in the hospitals, but also to sell and give support to hospital and doctors, for the machines. So until the first half of the century, there were not much instrumentation involved. Instead, from the old worlds, we have an increase of instrumentation. You need to consider that, for example, that x ray, that we consider medical standards now as an entry level diagnostic actually was cutting edge in the First World War where actually Marie Curie and her daughter went on the field with the field ambulence, with an x ray machine to test it. So as the medical professional involved, and the technology deployed in the medical field increased, then we had the need to engineer specialised in and then in that type of problems, and different from other branches, intrinsically multidisciplinary because you need to deal with many aspects of engineering and on the with the one single field. 

Emily Slade: Can you describe the goal of the MSc in biomedical engineering? 

Dr Carlo Tiseo: Our goal is trying to answer to a need of an increase of manpower in in the biomedical field to consider that all the development country are increasing in population, so there will be an increase in demand on medical services. At the same time, we have a reduction of active population, so it's the population which is not either studying or is not retired. So that reduction which we have less people able to provide services. And services here is in kind of the largest or basically work power and power, and then you have a higher demand more there is a higher need for medical services. So a huge drive is to increase the automobiles decision level and the increase of diagnostic and therapeutic devices that are able to be more effective and efficient, efficient in delivering medical services. And so we will need the more people to take care of that machines, that they will increase in numbers compared to other countries, starting in the UK, is not that the strong demand of these courses from the students, and one of the first MSc courses in biomedical engineering was in PL until three years ago was the only offer in UK. 

Emily Slade: Oh, wow. 

Dr Carlo Tiseo: Compared to other countries where is, early in the 90s, were established as faculty at national level, not only in centre of excellence. 

Emily Slade: Oh, perfect. So who would you say this course is for? 

Dr Carlo Tiseo: This course is for any one that has an engineering background in electronics and mechanical engineering or chemical engineering as well, and for physicists, the reason why we chose we added also physicists, is physicists have a good theoretical background to learn basic information that is taught and the subject that was taught within the course, and historically, the first that did this sensation on many of medical devices, first in version were physicists rather than engineer. 

Emily Slade: So for students that are not in the UK, or those that might want. To work remotely. Is there an option to study the course, either online or part time, whilst alongside work? 

Dr Carlo Tiseo: So we have an option for part time, but there is not option for remote these because it's an intensive there is an intensive laboratory use, both for engineering and atom subject. We'll discuss that later in more in depth. But so since we have the strong laboratory component is very we have not designed the course so to be attended online. 

Emily Slade: The course is a collaboration between the engineering department and the Brighton Sussex medical school. Is this the first time that that's happened, and how did it come about?  

Dr Carlo Tiseo: So, for a taught course, yes, there are inter-faculty collaboration for Centre of Excellence like Sussex neuroscience, but this was the first time where we got together for establishing a top course. It came about that there are strong collaboration, or attempt to go between the two schools for the research in the latest year. And we have tried, we are also trying to build the about Value Engineering Centre for Research, where to build around, also our infrastructure so our courses. And this is the first step, and we chose the Masters because it's is a program where you can deliver to a small group of people effectively is we also need to expand our expertise to cover A bachelor degrees for years, there are a lot more courses, something that the adaptation is to be given for the students and the type of support is different, because are less mature as an individual. They have not had any previous experience. For the bachelor in university, a Masters as other as other me, so for us, was the first step into expanding into what they were elsewhere in by my engineering to be able to give the best possible quality To our student for their program without exposing too much over committing too much the resources of the New York City. So it was a balance. We have to choose, identify a program that was for us, feasible to make an excellent level. And also we identified the MSc as the first step increasing our false material in biomedical engineering. 

Emily Slade: Perfect. So can you tell us a bit more about the course? What do you learn? 

Dr Carlo Tiseo: So the course itself is, in the first semester we give the basis so for the subject. So we do anatomy, which is a introduction to anatomy. So the anatomy that is needed that will be engineers to acquire the terminology and understanding of the human body and the function of the different parts of the body to effectively be during this profession, because you need to speak with Doctor, you need to understand what they're singing about. You'll be able to design things that are compatible with the human body, both in morphology and function. So you need to study of concept of human body. Then we will do another introduction course in physiology and biochemistry, we are to add the biochemistry, because not to everyone coming inside this master is expected to have the chemical background. So we have decided to be an introductory period at the beginning of physiology where we give the fundamental chemistry that is needed to understand the body. The idea is to run the two module, anatomy and physiology on parallel, because while anatomy is playing the morphology and the anatomical functions and names physiology instead, allow them to study the function and now that the chemistry of the different parts of the three part and what is the function within the. Uh, official, uh, the physiological state of the human body. Okay? And then we do medical instrumentation. My instrumentation is basically a course where it goes to standard medical instrumentation to understand the hours being Mason, how it works, in order for our students then to first learn how to how a medical technology is developed, by the same time, to learn the fundamentals of what they need when they go, whether they go to work. And the last subject is signal processing. And this because we are acquiring signals. Every time we do a measure or we elaborate information, the formation is a signal. So it's a fundamental skill to be able to elaborate signal and process signal acquired by sensors. So then during the second semester, we have the image processing. So image processing, process images which is used the intensity, for example, in the Gnostics. And wherever you are acquiring imaging and you're studying energy to make the young This is so yard. But for example, the ultrasound scans are received by online processing when you're looking at them, when you look an x ray, you may have signal processing and they may be also is essential to acquire images like cities, cards and MRI, without image processing, you will not have any image there. And then we have a wearable technologies. So wearable technologies is a course that study all the wearable technology, both for severe and medical use. So it's not only focused on on medical there is a predominance of medical matter. We look into exoskeletons. We look into wearable sensors to for tracking physiological parameters. But we also look in more commercial wearable technology, like the smartwatch, and then the we have another two courses in the second semester to complete our formative offer, which are biomaterials biocompatibility in that we will study basically what are all the materials react in contact with the body, and which material are suitable for that, because You don't want the material to poison the human body to so any good has to be resistance, because a human body is a very aggressive environment. So if you implant something, you normally degrade the material. So there are only a few materials that you can implant, and they will remain stable within the human body. 

Emily Slade: Oh, wow, I didn't know that. 

Dr Carlo Tiseo: And also, if you put in metal, you don't want to release every metal, so you need to choose materials so that are suitable to not poison the air. And the person that has any plan, 

Emily Slade: Yeah, ideally, yeah. 

Dr Carlo Tiseo:  And the management which is a course where they teaches the fundamental of managements that are a skill that are respected for many engineers, because as a part of an organization, it will be required to manage some tasks, manage people, understand about business. And so that we have that business management program delivered by a lecturer from the business school that teaches the fundamentals in this for the skills required the tool to be a part of The company or a organization of anything amazing. Then, if I can do a last remark, we have this also design our activities across the course to not only focus our skills, but actually what we want is to help our students to develop their soft skills in terms of problem solving, lateral thinking. So since biomedical engineering is a multi-disciplinary subject by definition, you need to be able to acquire a reasonable process problem solving, processes which are translatable. So you can apply to the. Different fields without even if you are not, you don't feel to be an expert is not a problem. When you go in the company, you may ask for a expert, but most of the time you need to understand the general process and be able to deliver a solution. So we have designed radical thing to this labour laboratory, group projects and the way of feedback that we want to give our students, which is not structure, but we give workshop, seminars and laboratory where the students can and have to be effective in learning the subject, ask for feedback, rather than structure the feedback. This because one of the first the most important things when you go on when a job is to understand when you reach the limit of your knowledge, you need to ask for help and be able to recognise your the level of your knowledge in a field, and be able to go and ask for help is an essential skill, because the company always provides use of posters training by you need to be able to ask for it. And so we believe that we are to build a structure that allows students to understand and how to deal with that company on environment, they into a safe settings, because that's what they are when they're learning it's a safe setting where they can test understand how to approach those type of situation. 

Emily Slade: That's really important, that's really good. Thank you. So What equipment do students have access to? 

Dr Carlo Tiseo:  Okay, equipment we have the library of anatomy, where they will have some medical instruments like ultrasound scans available there, both portable and more traditional, they will have access to specimen that have been dissected by the medical school so that we study the Word. They can study implants, how they evolved over time. Because when you have an implant in a body for primary period of time, especially early implants, ordering plants. They we start to see the problem of not having a perfect bio and so they will study that things that then we will have all the engineering infrastructure. So we shop electronics lab, the mechanical labs, food dynamics labs and thermodynamics lab weight Armel to simulate, to understand, for example, how they are. The Delta wire works. So when you're an animal, meter is a sensor measure of the flow rate. And so, for example, if you attach a person to a respirator, you want to understand what's the flow of breathing, to understand the effectiveness of the of the breath of the part of the patient. And so you put a new one meter, and those are pneumonia that are in the mask are they have two auto wires, because you need to understand the one that is gets through the flow of air, and it measures the flow and the other that give you the reference of the room temperature that you need to remove as bias in order to allow that to measure. You have, actually my aerodynamic shield. So you create a shield in front that allows the flow that exact sale to bypass one of the two wires so you can get the Delta and remove the element due to the temperature of the room, and that will allow to measure. So that is a typical example of a medical instrumentation that is simple but use if you see you have electronics, because you have when you need to understand how the electronics of built to wire, which is a resistor, works, how to measure and how to design a circuit that allow you to connect these two resistors together, as well through the dynamics, to understand how to bypass and Create a shield in front one of the two in order to acquire the measure, cool. 

Emily Slade: So cool. So after students graduate, what career opportunities wait for them? 

Dr Carlo Tiseo:  So always you say, okay, research are the developer? Those are possible, but are limited so on. Most of the workforce is acquired is actually to targets hospitals and medical device companies, because there is a strong demand. For in the hospital and medical institution in general, they need people inside to manage the infrastructure. This does not mean only intervene, the intervention and the support is given directly by the company that produces the device, but the management allows you understand one is broken, one to the company, to understand the creation, to understand when it's worth to update, to analyse so to prevent bids and all this is an expertise that Hospital Medical Centre in general have to have inside in order to balance the offer of the market demand, the demand from the clinicians, and try to understand what's the best choice for the Institute, and on the other side, on the complaint side, that they the device often are very complex to use the medical professional do not have the skill set to use those so it's not just soft and safe job that the company do is actually selling some port in assistance. So the one we are called product specialists, as people that know very well on product and they go inside to the provide support. They give technical assistance to the to the doctors, and so they that's why it's important to be able to speak both languages, the one the clinical languages of engineering language, because then on the compound front, you need to go back and report the problems and need of the customer to the company to go through around the year and improve the product identify new challenges that were not foreseen before Perfect. 

Emily Slade: What is the most exciting aspect of the course for you? 

Dr Carlo Tiseo:  It's an eclectic subject. So you you're not always doing the same thing. You don't specialize in one single aspect, but you should be a professional as a whole across the field of engineering in order to understand the problems you face. And that is, at the same time challenging, but then is also exciting, because the choice you are not, you don't become expert on one thing. And then the other things that I think is exciting is that the different from other engineering is in engineering, where normally you have the gender imbalance. It's very close to gender balance in biomedical engineering. 

Emily Slade: Oh, wow. Why do you think that is? 

Dr Carlo Tiseo:  I think, so if you look in general, all the subject normally, female students are the best students. Statistically, what I think with them, you look at the demographics, normally subject, where are more empathic or societal impact, which is more direct, more random people tends to have by your presence or cements, if you look nursing, medicine, psychology, biomedical engineering, old subject that if are stem but differently from other subject, the higher perceived society impact, I think, is a drive, is a different is interest, and that is very important, trying to define programs that diversify the offer within a school, to find program that may interest the wider audience possible, and to email, but then we know statistically, then if we look in. Stem general balance in general, I think it's too early to speak at university level, to look at that from a general balance university level, because it's too early. The real gap between the two genders there is not in the evolve in terms of time that the societal rules is almost similar when you're a student, what I personally and in here, this is a personal perception. If I look subject like medicine for example, you look at historically, there's been before, even when it was less accessible to women education in the 60s, 80s, my parents generation in medicine were almost a balance between the two. But then, if you look, I'm taking that course, because now look at the at the director of units, they are predominantly males. So we may need to look at support on gender balance in and under, uh, maybe it's later in there, I believe is later. And the tools are not simply to say, Okay, I need to have parity n the university. In university, you need to make an offer that is inclusive then and in the career and when you get older and can they to end the role like the society may change then you need to find a way to balance the career to be effective. Otherwise is a number policy. But that's my 

Emily Slade: That's brilliant. Well, that's everything from me. Thank you so much for your time today. 

Dr Carlo Tiseo:  Thank you.  

Emily Slade: Thanks again to Carlo for his time. For more information on the course you can head to prospects.ac.uk. If you enjoyed the episode feel free to leave us a review on Apple or Spotify - for a full length video version of this episode check out our YouTube channel @futureyoupod. Thank you as always for listening and good luck on your journey to future you.

Notes on transcript

This transcript was produced using a combination of automated software and human transcribers and may contain errors. The audio version is definitive and should be checked before quoting.

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