The Future of Training in Biomedical Engineering

This report has been prepared by past and present members of the Engineering in Biology and Medicine Training Committee in response to a request from the Research Training Grants Branch, NIGMS. It represents the best effort of this group to project the national manpower needs in biomedical engineering during the decades to come and to assess the impact of different types of federal support of graduate training in biomedical engineering. The Committee believes that, although there may be an apparent oversupply of biomedical engineering Ph.D.´s during the next year or two, in the longer range the need for biomedical engineers at all educational levels will meet or exceed the capacity of the nation´s educational system to produce them. This view depends, however, on the assumption that certain changes will take place, both in the biomedical engineering industry and in the universities. The Committee concludes that a balanced collection of several means for governmental support of biomedical engineering graduate students is both appropriate and necessary.