Interested in Pre-Med?
Here's why you should seriously consider
Biomedical Engineering at The University of Iowa
Are you interested in a career in health? Biomedical
Engineering is a great undergraduate major if you want to be accepted
into medical or dental colleges.
The term pre-med refers to a series of recommended courses. Pre-med is not an actual major. Students considering a career in medicine or dentistry need to satisfy requirements in an undergraduate major, such as biology or chemistry, and take pre-med courses in order to apply for admission to medical colleges. Biomedical Engineering offers the broadest spectrum of science, mathematics, engineering, and technology courses of all the customary major fields. Students learn these subjects by direct experience with the methods and processes of inquiry.
In the medical community, new fields are emerging and new needs are arising. As prosthetics, laser-assisted surgeries, and new imaging technologies become more prevalent in medicine, doctors and engineers are working as teams. Biomedical Engineering has become a partner to the medical sciences.
Key Facts
- The University of Iowa has one of only 28 biomedical engineering and bioengineering undergraduate programs in the U.S. to be fully accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). Many of these programs are at private colleges and universities with far higher costs than you will find at Iowa.
- Iowa's flexible Biomedical Engineering curriculum combines requirements you will need, including chemistry, biology, and physics, with specialized courses such as medical imaging, solid biomechanics (hip replacements), fluid mechanics (increasing blood flow through the heart by total heart replacements), bioinstrumentation (patient simulators, tracking electrical signals of the eye, kidney dialysis), or biomaterials (ceramics, polymers, glasses, and metals as biocompatible implants).
- The interdisciplinary nature of Biomedical Engineering promotes strong collaboration with medical colleagues: cardiologists, orthopedic surgeons, physical therapists, radiologists, and health care workers. The team provides comprehensive answers to problems in maintaining the human machine.
- Iowa's College of Engineering emphasizes communication, teamwork, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills — lifelong learning skills that enable physicians to make accurate diagnoses.
Career Options
About one-third of our Biomedical Engineering graduates
enter medical schools (such as the College
of Medicine and College
of Dentistry at The University of Iowa), one-third pursue advanced
engineering degrees, and the remaining one-third enter the work force.
In addition to a traditional medical career, other examples of career
options include occupant protection and vehicle crash worthiness research,
research and clinical instrumentation, testing and evolution of prosthetic
devices, and imaging applications, such as magnetic resonance imaging
(MRI), positron emission tomography (PET) scans, and computerized
tomography (CT) scans.