Those looking to enter the biomedical technology field now have fewer options when selecting an educational program. The 11 Brown Mackie College campuses that offered degrees in biomedical technology are no longer enrolling new students in this program. DeVry University is discontinuing its bachelor’s in biomedical engineering at seven of the 13 campuses where it was offered.
One of the reasons cited for these changes is low enrollment. Barbara Christie, the healthcare engineering technology management program director at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, said she has difficulty attracting students.
“Truly one of the greatest challenges I face is recruiting students into my program,” she said. “However, the lack of academic programs is a catch-22 – the discipline cannot attract large numbers of high school students if there are no academic programs for the student to attend.”
William Phillips, associate national dean for program development at DeVry University, correlates low enrollment in biomedical technology and clinical engineering technology programs to students’ fears that they will be pigeon-holed for the rest of their careers.
For Phillips, the solution is not to prepare students to work in a specific industry, but to give them the tools that they will need to succeed in a wider career field. For example, he said, the steps involved in tasks such as troubleshooting or fixing a circuit are the same whether a person is working in transportation, manufacturing, or health care, so it is important to focus on teaching students these core competencies of engineering technology and then letting them learn about industry specifics as part of a specialization in their program of study, internships or co-ops, certificates, or “boot camps.”
Steven Yelton, a professor of HTM for Cincinnati State Technical and Community College, disagrees with the idea that young professionals will not commit themselves to one career or field.
“I’ve heard this said about millennials, but honestly I have not found that within the biomedical profession. I find that most tend to stay in the biomedical field,” he said. “My students pick biomedical engineering technology [BMET] because it gives them more opportunities, not less. They feel like with a BMET major, they could work in hospitals or for biomedical companies, as well as for electronics companies. I find that electronics employers will hire BMET graduates, but hospitals will not hire electronics graduates unless there are no BMETs available.”