Biomedical Engineering Education and Practice Challenges and opportunities in improving health in developing countries

Abstract-While developed countries constantly pioneer new medical technologies, developing countries have been plighted with a lack of medical devices, resulting in poor health, poverty, and social inequality. Much of the medical equipment that these countries do have is broken, unusable due to a lack of electricity and infrastructure, or inappropriate for local needs. In 2000, the Global Forum for Health Research coined the term "10/90 Gap" to describe the fact that only 10% of health research funds are spent on the problems of 90% of the world's population. If the developing world is to acquire useful medical technologies, it must come from within, as the developed world has shown minimal interest in pursuing technologies for markets where the financial return is only nominal. If engineers in developed countries put their energy and resources into building the capacity of their counterparts in developing countries, they will be able to maximize their impact on the most relevant issues in global health. In order to succeed in their work abroad, biomedical engineers from developed countries must transition from being providers of solutions, to enablers of local innovation, thus contributing directly to both education and implementation. This paper addresses current challenges and appropriate solutions to tackle the lack of biomedical engineering education and innovation in developing countries

Biomedical Engineering Education and Practice: Challenges and opportunities in improving health in developing countries

Atlanta Conference on Science and Innovation Policy 2011This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder. ©2011 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.If the developing world is to overcome its lack of useful medical technologies, the innovation to do so must come from within; the developed world has shown minimal interest in pursuing technologies for markets with only nominal financial returns. In order to succeed in their work abroad, biomedical engineers from developed countries must transition from being providers of solutions to enablers of local innovation, thus contributing directly to both education and implementation.Boston Universit