Please Help. Thinking Of Studying Biomed Engineering
Q: I guess the most obvioius question is how much does a biomedical engineer make? Is he treated more as a doctor, or as an engineer? using the sterotype that engineers are paid low while doctors are paid more. Also, how hard would it be to double major in biomed engineering and MD? Do the courses overlap, or no? I ask because while I'm great at CS,biology,physics, and engineering, I'm not too sure I just want to deal with one of them. I, like most engineers remember when I was young, I'd take apart everything I could and see how it worked. Unfortunately, my dad's a mechanical engineer, and I'm sure I don't JUST want to do mechanical engineering. I've also taken courses in CS and have job experience in it, but do not plan on just doing that. same thing with bio and physics. Are there any programs out there that are geared towards biomed & med? I saw on Columbia Universties biomed page that their core curriculum can lead to a MD-P.Hd What does this mean? straight from BS in biomed to a Phd in MD, or does it mean to a MD or P.Hd in biomed?
A: -The MD-PhD is straightforward in concept-- you get both MedicalDoctor and a PhD (a research degree). The PhD is generally in some branch of medical science, e.g. physiology, neurology, etc. I don't happen to know any MD-PhD(Bioeng), but it certainly seems plausible -- just a whale of a lot of work. You have to be really bright and have the necessary drive to succeed, but it's more common all the time. All of engineering is frought with a lot of age discrimination. You have to be a superstar not to be affected by this. This is getting worse with time (e.g. compared to one or two decades ago). You may wish to consider this. OTOH the first decade or two of engineering is better for salary than a straight science degree at the BS level. Bioengineering is a great way to have a mix of experiences. If you like dealing with things, more than people (have you ever dealt with the public in high pressure situations?), bioengineering is better. Personally, I also can live with my mistakes better when I burn out transistors, in comparison with having my mistakes result in problems for a person. And it still provides a sense of doing things that help people without (shudder) having to deal with the *really hard* problems that people have. For all of our advances, there are many problems out there that we still can't solve. Of course, that's where research can be really cool. There is a lot of degree-inflation going on. IMHO a B.S. in Bioengineering is useless without additional degrees or work -- it's too much to cover in 4-5 years. A BS in a more traditional engineering area is much better, then (if desired) get a M.S. in Bioengineering; or better yet, an MS in the same area as the BS, and the MSBioeng. If you are really hopelessly in love with academia, you can get a PhD. Be aware that the PhD is not an end, it is a beginning -- think about where you want to go before you do this. If you haven't gotten to your junior year in college, wait. You haven't seen enough yet to make any real decisions. But it's good to ask questions, and most of all keep your eyes wide open. Don't look just in the academic environment, either -- there is a lot of bias from any single source (including me). - If you are interested in MD/PhD programs a good place to start is a site at Case Western which has a list of MD/PhD programs (http://chimera.gene.cwru.edu/~marc/mstp2.html). Then you could check and see which schools offer the PhD portion to be in Biomedical Engineering. Some programs are set up so that that the MD is at one