Rethinking the undergraduate biomedical engineering curriculum after an analysis of the 20 previous years

This manuscript presents the analysis and results of 20 years of following practically the same curriculum in Biomedical Engineering (BME). Several studies on the status of BME graduates and the analysis of the students´ academic achievements were carried out and the results show that even if the graduates are able to get employed rather easily, the salaries and the type of work they carry out, correspond mostly to the definition of the work of a technician. We present a comparative analysis of the curricula at UAM, with that of a number of ABET accredited universities that offer BME degrees, and then we propose a new structure that tries to address most of the problems of long graduation times and redundancies in the curriculum. The proposed modifications result in a program that is similar to other ABET accredited universities, including a greater quantity of elective and Social Science courses, but that still conserves the strong orientation and excellency in Medical Instrumentation. The number of credit hours is reduced to numbers that are more in line with the common denominator at other institutions. This new curriculum is expected to be approved this year, and to start operating in January, 2004.