Biomedical engineering in Latin America: A survey of 90 undergraduate programs

Abstract

Undergraduate programs in BME started in Latin America over 40 years ago. From two programs in the seventies, the number has grown into at least 90 at present. This work presents a survey of all the programs and analyzes the curricular structure, aims and focus areas. It shows that the original aims that were to manage and maintain the technical structure in the health sectors still persist. The influence of early founders and the field of electrical engineering now hinder its transformation that would address more challenging problems in fields such as cellular, molecular and tissue engineering, for example. The region has an abundance of very similar programs at institutions that could be considered to be “Teaching Universities” Much work needs to be done to transform the aims and approaches into programs that stress Engineering Design, Innovation and Development.