U.S. News & World Report has identified “biomedical equipment technician” among its list of “31 Careers with Bright Futures” in its online guide to “Best Careers for 2008.”

The article begins, “imagine you’re in a hospital bed, hooked up to a heart monitor and a ventilator. Those machines had better be working properly. Fortunately, they almost always are. Whom do you thank? A biomedical equipment tech.”

As with any field, there are plusses and minuses, the article notes, but clearly the good outweighs the bad. “Next time you’re visiting someone in the hospital and hear those lifesaving beeps and alarms, think about whether you just want to be grateful to a biomed tech, or become one,” the piece concludes — a strong endorsement for the field.

According to U.S. News & World Report, to select the “31 Careers with Bright Futures,” the magazine used both quantitative and qualitative criteria. “From the hundreds of careers and variants in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook plus other candidate careers, we selected the 31 that offered outstanding opportunities” based on job satisfaction, training difficulty, prestige, job market outlook, and pay.

AAMI’s website (www.aami.org) is listed among the resources for information about the field, which has been a primary goal of AAMI’s Technology Management Council (TMC). The magazine’s complete Best Careers for 2008 guide can be found at http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/best-careers/2007/12/19/biomedical-equipment-technician-executive-summary.html.