Sharing BME with Vietnam
rofessor Emeritus John
Webster has given lectures and developed courses and labs in such
countries as China, Indonesia, Singapore and Taiwan, so when Tufts University
Biomedical Engineering Professor and department founder Van Toi Vo asked
him to help assess the state of biomedical engineering in Vietnam, Webster
eagerly accepted.
The U.S. delegation, which also included faculty,
physicians and researchers from Northwestern University, the National
Institutes of Health, George Washington University, Harvard-MIT Division
of Health Sciences and Technology, and the Vietnam Education Foundation,
visited three Vietnamese universities Jan. 3 to 15.
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In a Hanoi hospital,
a mother administers low-power optoacupuncture with small laser
diodes on the skin, powered via wires.
(30K
JPG)
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The group met with faculty, researchers, graduate
students and university officials; U.S. delegates shared their biomedical
engineering research and educational programs, while the Vietnamese
talked about their similar programs. “Most of these teachers are
self-taught,” says Webster. “That is, they’ve never
taken a course in biomedical engineering. They are perhaps electrical
engineers and they pick up a book on biomedical engineering and they
start teaching the students from it.”
The Hanoi University of Technology just started a
biomedical engineering educational program with electrical engineering
students by offering them BME courses their last two years of school.
However, the laboratories were primitive, says Webster. “Maybe
you’ll see one or two pieces of such specialized medical equipment
and that’s it,” he says.
Last year, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology
graduated 30 BME students. It offers a curriculum of 40 courses and
a more advanced lab. The other major institution, Can Tho University,
had just one professor working on a biomedical engineering research
project.
Vietnamese professors’ educational goals are
much different from those of biomedical engineering faculty in the United
States, where they prepare students for medical school, graduate school,
or for design work in medical device companies, says Webster. In Vietnam,
there aren’t companies that make medical devices; rather, there
are importers that need students who understand how to sell, use and
maintain biomedical engineering equipment.
“The real needs are to obtain a variety of
such equipment that’s used in hospitals that the students can
work with and become familiar with so that they can look forward to
jobs with these importing companies,” Webster says.
Upon its return, the group submitted a report to the
National Science Foundation, which funded the trip. Webster says he
hopes the U.S. visit will inspire a fellowship program in which Vietnamese
faculty and students can obtain PhDs here and then return home to share
what they’ve learned.
