How I Became a Biomedical Engineer

Cecilia 0 Driscoll, MSc BME, has forsaken the shores of the US and gone against the tide of emigration. She is living in Ireland and runs her own company.

In the late 70’s most people who became Bio-Engineers did so by pure accident; I was no different.

I entered university at the age of 16 to study Electrical Engineering; not because I wanted to become an electrical engineer, but because I was an only child, my father had received a B.S. and a M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta Georgia and my mother’s father had received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech. I had no choice.

I had wanted to become a veterinarian. But this was the South! It was not proper for a young Southern lady to aspire to look after large animals and track around in the muck. So I became an electrical engineer. I did what my father had encouraged me to do and I received an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering in 1980.

My first job out of university was working with a consulting engineering company doing power distribution. I counted consumers, residential and commercial, on a large map, then keypunched cards for each segment to be fed into the computer program. The money was great, $25,000.00, but I knew that if I continued working at this job I would go completely mad. I quit!

Scouring the want-ads each day I came upon an ad for an engineer at Crawford Long Hospital. The ad was very vague. I will always remember how it read, "Engineer wanted for large city hospital, must be good with your hands, able to communicate with the masses, and not afraid of the long hours, hard work and gods." Well my mother had always told everyone that my one personality flaw was that I was not afraid of the devil himself so I figured "gods" would be no problem.

Much to my surprise I got the job. It was the worst job anyone could ever have had. Not only were you responsible for the medical equipment through out the hospital, you were responsible for training new staff about that equipment as well as changing light bulbs, plugs, and any other thing that used electricity. The hours were long, very long, and the pay was terrible, but each day brought something new and exciting. The "gods" referred to in the ad were of course the surgeons and consultants. At first I think they viewed us, the Bio-Med’s, as general handy men not professionals, but as the months rolled by most began to gain a real respect for the jobs we did. It was at this time I knew that if I was ever to advance in this new and exciting field, I would need to go back to school. Not many schools offered programs in Bio-Medical Engineering, or should I say that most schools that offered programs were private, big bucks, and I knew that my parents were not going to support me for 2 to 3 more years to obtain a post graduate degree. I applied to the Bio-Medical Program at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee (a State school) and I was accepted. It was the toughest 2 years of my life, but I was in my element. As I stated before Bio- Medical Engineering was a new field and was changing every day.

I obtained my M.S. in late 1983 and like all new graduates, I thought that the world owed me a job, that I would have job offers pouring in. Guess what? That just did not happen. I had to make a job for myself. I applied for a job as a Cardiopulmonary Technologist at Emory University. I got the job with the understanding that I must become registered within the next 6 months. I did so. I worked in the pulmonary function lab for 4 months. I became good friends with the perfusionist at the hospital and he encouraged me to enter into the program that was being offered at Emory University. I applied and was accepted. After graduation and completion of receiving my licence I worked with the Heart team for the Emory Hospital System. This system was comprised of three large hospitals, Emory University Hospital, Grady Hospital, and Crawford Long. The system employed 6 perfusionist’s who rotated between the 3 hospitals. We each were responsible for 2 hearts a day, and trauma call 48 hours out of every 2 weeks.

Trauma call was gun shots and stabbings to the chest. The patient population on trauma cases was comprised mostly of drug addicts. The year was 1985-1986 and AIDS was the topic on every one’s lips. Risks in my working environment became greater each and every day. I decided it was time for a change.

I requested to be transferred back into the general Bio-Medical area, to go back to working with my hands. The head of the department laughed when he read my request. He knew that I would never be happy "Just repairing machines" again and refused my transfer. (After all he was the person who gave me my first job. He pointed out that I had developed the "god complex" and that I needed the adrenaline rush that I got working each and every day working in the O.R./ Theatre

While I didn’t agree with this evaluation of my personality, all my friends pointed out to me that he was correct.

I still wanted a change! I began looking for some way to use the education and experience I bad acquired over the past 6 years working in the Bio-Medical field. Needless to say my options were limited.

One day the engineer who looked after the Anaesthesia Lab was out sick and I was dispatched to take his place for the next week. I dealt with sales representatives and so- called technical specialists almost every day. Most were highly educated, knew their product line, but were clue-less when it came to knowing how the equipment worked. I had found my escape.

It took me 2.5 years to convince a Medical Equipment company to hire me as a Sales Engineer and I’ve never looked back.

Just one note on closing, the job description placed in the Atlanta Journal back in the early 80’s still applies today but left out two important criteria, being a good problem solver and having a sense of humour.