Technology
Management Council

AAMI has launched a new section of its website to educate students about a career in medical technology.

Created by AAMI’s Technology Management Council (TMC), the student-oriented section includes important resources for potential recruits about joining the biomed field, such as information on scholarships, educational and training requirements, and more.

The section — located at www.aami.org/student — has been created in part to address a need to attract more students to the biomedical/clinical engineering field. It includes numerous multimedia resources, including:

• Videos that highlight the important role that biomeds play in the healthcare field,
• Audio clips of radio interviews that AAMI members took part in recently to promote the field, and
• A map of the United States to enable students to click-and-find schools that offer biomed programs.

“In this age of YouTube, it seems like something isn’t real unless there is a video of it, so this site should be appealing to students,” says Steve Bezanson, biomedical equipment technology instructor for Minnesota-based Dakota County Technical College.

Other highlights include a recent article from U.S. News and World Report, which lists biomedical equipment technician (BMET) as a top career in 2009; and a feature whereby students can submit questions about the field that will be answered by TMC members.

This new section of the AAMI website also provides detailed information about the skills and training requirements for the profession.

AAMI will promote the site through a variety of avenues within and outside of the field to spread the word about this new resource.

“A successful BMET has to be a rather unique, perhaps special, individual,” says Fred Dorau, CBET, instructor/ program head of biomedical technology at Western Technical College in Wisconsin. “The new site can assist me in helping a prospective student decide if he or she will be a good fit.”

Source: AAMI News: July/August 2009, Vol. 44, No. 7