Biomechanical engineering is a field that helps prepare students to become professionals that combine medicine with medical technology. Students identify problems in medicine and attempt to solve them through engineering. They learn biological, medical and engineering sciences and apply them to clinical engineering, biomaterials and medical electronics. Biomechanical engineering also applies technology to pharmaceuticals, rehabilitation and radiation cancer therapy. A biomechanical engineer, for example, might design more appropriate prosthetic devices or robotic systems for surgeries.
A Bachelor of Science in Biomechanical Engineering, referred to as a B.M.E., focuses on musculoskeletal, neuromuscular and cardiovascular biomechanics. A student in this area works closely with mechanics and computation and design in the Mechanical Engineering Department, the Departments of Radiology and Surgery and the Orthopaedic Surgery Department. In this field, you focus mainly on science, mathematics and engineering fundamentals. Courses would include intense studies of calculus, fluid mechanics and thermodynamics. For advanced studies, you can learn the mechanobiology of skeletal growth, adaptation, regeneration and the dynamics of animal and human movement. With this degree, you can begin work in engineering fields, apply to medical school or continue to graduate school.
Various schools give different titles to this degree. You might earn a Bachelor of Science (B.S.), a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (B.S.E.) or a Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) undergraduate degree. These are all roughly equivalent, and their value merely depends on the quality of the school's program that awards it.
This degree is very much like a B.M.E., except that it places more emphasis on computer science. In this degree, you would learn computational aspects of biomechanical engineering as well an in-depth study of biology. Unlike a B.M.E., this degree focuses more on statistical analysis and application, so you would take more statistics and math courses than in a B.M.E.
Pursuing a master's degree in biomechanical engineering will earn you a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering. In pursuing this degree, you will focus more on emerging bioengineering research and select two or more concentrations to pursue during your coursework. At many schools, this can include biomedical computation, regenerative medicine and tissue engineering, biomedical imaging and molecular and cell bioengineering and biomedical devices. Not all schools require you to write a thesis, but many ask you to devise a biotechnology project.
Doctoral students in biomechanical engineering can receive their degrees in mechanical engineering. To attain this degree, you will most likely need to focus your studies on a particular specialty and then write on that topic. Your focus will be on research and innovative design of engineering technology. A biomechanical engineering student can also pursue a Doctor of Philosophy in Bioengineering degree. Those who choose this path are most often aspiring researchers. To pursue this, you would need to write and defend a dissertation that reflects research and findings that would have an impact on biomechanical engineering today. In this degree, you can research areas such as biomaterial mechanics, tissue engineering and neuromuscular control.
Biomedical engineering and biomechanical engineering are often confused. Biomechanical engineering, sometimes called bioengineering, is a subdiscipline of biomedical engineering. This field focuses specifically on the way living things move. Biomedical engineering focuses more broadly on how engineering principles are applied to the life sciences. For example, in most colleges, there is no major in biomedical engineering. Rather, as shown by schools like MIT, biomedical engineering is considered an application field of many engineering disciplines.
Many who pursue a degree in biomechanical engineering also pursue a specialization. Specializations include bioinstrumentation, biomechanics, biomaterials, clinical engineering, medical imaging and more. Specializations can be as diverse as rehabilitation engineering and systems physiology. Each subspecialty has a particular area of focus. Biomaterial, for instance, focuses on using engineering materials in principles of cell biology and physiology. Somebody in this specialty might focus on things like surgical sutures or artificial hips. Biomedical imaging, on the other hand, involves the application of quantitative science and engineering to detect and visualize biological processes. Students pursuing this utilize and design imaging far more complex than X-ray imaging.