This transformative textbook, first of its kind to incorporate engineering principles into medical education and practice, will be a useful tool for physicians, medical students, biomedical engineers, biomedical engineering students, and healthcare executives. The central approach of the proposed textbook is to provide principles of engineering as applied to medicine and guide the medical students and physicians in achieving the goal of solving medical problems by engineering principles and methodologies. For the medical students and physicians, this proposed textbook will train them to "think like an engineer and act as a physician". The textbook contains a variety of teaching techniques including class lectures, small group discussions, group projects, and individual projects, with the goals of not just helping students and professionals to understand the principles and methods of engineering, but also guiding students and professionals to develop real-life solutions. For the biomedical engineers and biomedical engineering students, this proposed textbook will give them a large framework and global perspective of how engineering principles could positively impact real-life medicine. To the healthcare executives, the goal of this book is to provide them general guidance and specific examples of applying engineering principles in implementing solution-oriented methodology to their healthcare enterprises. Overall goals of this book are to help improve the overall quality and efficiency of healthcare delivery and outcomes.
About the Author: Lawrence S. Chan, MD, a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology with double B.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering and Life Sciences, obtained his medical training at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and a M.D. degree. After an internship in Internal Medicine at the Cooper Hospital/University of Medical Center, he then completed his residency training in Dermatology and a fellowship training in Immunology at the University of Michigan Medical Center. He initially served as a junior faculty member at the Wayne State University and Northwestern University. He subsequently served as the Chief of Dermatology at the University of Illinois Hospital and the Department Head of Dermatology at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago for 11 years as well as the Program Director of Dermatology Residency for 9 years. His research interests focused on the immune mechanisms of autoimmune and inflammatory skin diseases and had received grant funding from the Dermatology Foundation, Veterans Affairs, and the National Institutes of Health. His academic achievements include more than 110 full-length biomedical publications, 35 book chapters, and 3 textbooks. Professionally Dr. Chan has been recognized as one of the America's Top Physicians in Guide to America's Top Physicians by Consumers' Research Council of America. Currently he is the Dr. Orville J. Stone Endowed Professor of Dermatology at the University of Illinois College of Medicine and has recently completed a master degree in Health Administration (MHA) under the Clinician Executive Master in Health Administration (CEMHA) Program at University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health.
William C. Tang, PhD., obtained his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Tang has substantial hands-on engineering and leadership experience in both academic arena and real-life industry. He has previously served as Member of Technical Staff at TRW, Engineer Senior at IBM Corp., Sensor Research Manager at Ford Microelectronics, Inc., Group Supervisor at Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Program Manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and subsequently served as the founding Associate Dean for Research of the Henry Samueli School of Engineering at the University of California, Irvine. Currently he is Professor of Biomedical Engineering with joint appointments with the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and the Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Departments at the same institution. His major research interests are in the development of devices and platforms that enable both in-vitro and in-vivo studies of the mechanical aspects of physiological activities at the length-scales that are beyond the reach of traditional biomedical instrumentation. His Microbiomechanics Laboratory has been supported by grants from DARPA, NIH, NSF, and private and foundation donations. His academic achievements include over 100 full-length biomedical publications, 4 book chapters, 8 patents, and multiple Achievement Awards.