Five year biomedical engineering curriculum - Experiences and results from the first eight years

Abstract

A full M.Sc- curriculum in Biomedical Engineering and Informatics was established at Aalborg University in 2000. The curriculum reflects the multidisciplinary composition of Biomedical Engineering and it consists of elements from engineering, informatics, medical and natural sciences as well as of elements from the social sciences. The education follows the AAU problem-based learning (PBL) study paradigm with project-organized studies. The first students graduated as M.Sc. in June 2005. We have an average annual uptake of app. 35 students of which 25 - 40% are female students. By establishing a full graduate curriculum in BME with intake directly from the high school level we believed, and have proved, that it is possible to attract more students due to larger visibility of the BME-program as opposed to classical graduate. It has been shown that the curriculum and study form equips the student well for future jobs - all candidates from the first three years have jobs. Several student projects have taken awards; some student projects have lead to patents and some student projects are being transferred to private companies. Both hospital, industry and academia are giving very positive testimonials about the first candidates. © 2008 Springer-Verlag.