Introduction to Biomedical Engineering

Course Description

Introduction to Biomedical Engineering is the entry point to the major and the course that shows a student what the discipline actually contains. The statewide description covers cell physiology and modelling, bioinstrumentation, biomaterials, tissue engineering and bioimaging, built on prior coursework in biological science, physics and calculus.

⚠⚠ Its real job is a decision, not a survey. Biomedical engineering spans electronics, mechanics, materials and cell biology, and almost nobody does all four. This is where a student finds out which of them they want, and that choice shapes every elective and, in this discipline more than most, whether they go on to graduate study.

Carried by three Florida public institutions.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Describe the major subdisciplines of biomedical engineering and what each does.
• Apply engineering analysis to a physiological system at an introductory level.
• Describe cell physiology in terms a quantitative model can use.
• Explain the operating principles of common biomedical instruments.
• Describe the main classes of biomaterial and the biological response to them.
• Explain the regulatory and ethical framework that medical devices and human research operate inside.

Optional Outcomes

• Introductory programming or computational modelling in MATLAB or Python.
• Team design exercises.
• Literature searching and technical presentation.
• Careers and graduate-study orientation.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• What biomedical engineering is; the subdisciplines and who employs them.
• Cell physiology and introductory modelling.
• Bioinstrumentation: sensors, signals, electrical safety.
• Biomaterials and the foreign-body response.
• Tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.
• Medical imaging modalities.
• Regulation, ethics and the device lifecycle.

Optional Topics

• Introductory MATLAB or Python.
• Design exercises and teamwork.
• Research methods and literature review.

Resources & Tools

• Enderle & Bronzino, Introduction to Biomedical Engineering, and Saltzman, Biomedical Engineering: Bridging Medicine and Technology, are the usual texts.
• MATLAB, where the institution introduces it here.
• ⚠ The FDA medical devices pages and the Biomedical Engineering Society are worth reading early rather than late — the regulatory material in particular is what distinguishes a graduate in interviews.

Career Pathways

Named on the Biomedical Engineer career path, where it is the entry point to the major.

⚠⚠ And a word about level, because it applies to every course in this prefix. O*NET reports that only 43% of employers treat a bachelor’s as sufficient for this occupation, against 26% naming a master’s and 13% a doctorate — by a wide margin the highest graduate expectation of any engineering discipline. Choose your upper-level courses with that in mind: the instrumentation, signals and imaging cluster is the most employable at bachelor’s level, while the tissue, neural and BioMEMS cluster largely assumes you intend to continue.

Special Information

⚠⚠⚠ Its statewide prerequisite names a course that does not exist

The state records the gate as BSC 2012, MAC 2312, PHY 2048C. Calculus II and calculus-based physics are real and enforced. BSC2012 is carried by no Florida public institution at all.

The course the state means is the majors biology sequence, and Florida numbers it two ways with no institution in both:

⚠ Register for the laboratories too. Most carriers split the biology course into a 3-credit lecture and a separate 1-credit L, and every biomedical engineering programme requires the laboratory.

⚠⚠ Four numbers, three levels, one introductory course

⚠⚠ FAMU and Florida State carry both BME3009 and BME4007, so within one college there are two courses with introductory titles at different levels. And the level matters more than the title: a 1000-level introduction is a first-year orientation course, while a 3000-level one assumes biology, calculus and physics and is a genuine engineering course. Do not assume a transfer credit for “Introduction to Biomedical Engineering” will substitute across that gap.

⚠ A route in from a state college

St. Petersburg College is the only Florida College System institution carrying any BME course — BME1008C. That is not a barrier, because the first two years of this degree are calculus, physics, chemistry, majors biology and composition, all available everywhere. Finish those, with the laboratories, and transfer. ⚠ Biology is the requirement transfer applicants most often lack, because it is what distinguishes this degree from every other engineering major.

⚠⚠ Where this degree exists in Florida, and where it does not

Biomedical engineering is awarded at bachelor’s level by six Florida public institutions in five cities: UF (115 degrees a year), FIU (79), Florida State (36), USF (29), Florida Gulf Coast (21) and Florida A&M (4). Florida State and Florida A&M share the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, one joint college in Tallahassee, which is why their records in this prefix are identical down to the title.

⚠⚠ UCF and FAU award biomedical engineering at master’s and doctoral level and no bachelor’s at all, and UNF and Florida Polytechnic carry courses in the prefix without awarding the degree. St. Petersburg College is the only Florida College System institution carrying any BME course.

⚠ So a carrier count in this prefix overstates how many independent programmes exist — a course carried by “FAMU and FSU” is one programme’s course. Read anything stated here about content as a description of a small number of specific curricula rather than a Florida-wide norm. The Biomedical Engineer career path sets out what this means for choosing where to study.

⚠⚠ Read the prerequisite from YOUR catalogue — in this prefix the state record is unusually unreliable

This repository checks every course-looking token in a statewide prerequisite against who actually carries that course. The BME prefix returns the worst result measured anywhere in Florida: of 100 active undergraduate records, 75 name at least one course in their prerequisite field, and fifteen of those 75 — one in five — name a course that no Florida public institution carries. The same test on criminal justice returns about 2%.

⚠⚠ The likeliest cause is age, not carelessness. Biomedical engineering is Florida’s newest and fastest-growing engineering discipline; its programmes were built recently and renumbered as they matured, and the statewide record kept the numbers that were proposed, used briefly or retired along the way. The practical consequence is simply that in this prefix you should read the gate from your own institution’s catalogue every time.

Accreditation and licensure

⚠⚠ Check that your programme is accredited by ABET’s ENGINEERING Accreditation Commission, not the engineering technology commission — the difference is two extra years of experience toward a Professional Engineer licence, and accreditation attaches to a named programme at a named institution rather than to a course list.

Few biomedical engineers license: device manufacturing falls under the industrial exemption. ⚠ The exception is clinical engineering in hospitals and healthcare facility work. Sit the FE examination in your final year regardless — it is inexpensive as a student and expensive to recreate later. Under s. 471.013(1)(a), Florida Statutes, an approved engineering curriculum needs four years of qualifying experience toward the PE.