Should people with fully functional limbs be allowed to replace them with bionic prosthetics? What if this also creates disparities between the rich and poor? Where do we draw the line between fixing a medical problem and giving someone an unfair advantage? Some people believe that these enhancements go too far and alter what it means to be human, while other people think it is ok to do this because it improves human life.
A lot of research studies, including those in medicine, have to be approved by your university's Institutional Review Board (IRB) before you can begin collecting data. You need to outline your research's goals, methods, risks and benefits, and the IRB determines whether your research follows the ethical guidelines of your university.
Career Paths After Biomedical Engineering
There are many different careers people pursue after majoring in biomedical engineering. In my college, some of my graduating class went into industry. This means they got a job at a company where they work on either making medical devices or implants, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals (developing drugs and treatments for diseases), coding computational models or services or testing the quality and efficacy of medical technology. Other people got jobs at consulting firms, where they help firms decide into which healthcare startups to invest money. A lot of people in my graduating class are pursuing a graduate education (e.g. masters or PhD) with the hopes of becoming researchers. Another big chunk of my graduating class is pursuing medical school in order to become physicians. Some people also start health startups, where they make a product and get funding to be able to improve the product and sell it to customers.
