Introduction The Whitaker Foundation Biomedical Engineering Summit Meeting

In the last 10 years, the growth of biomedical engineering educational programs has been dramatic; new departments formed, new degree-granting programs started, new buildings constructed, etc. When the cumulative number of departments is plotted versus years, the resulting graph resembles a steep mountainside to a summit. Never before has engineering education realized such rapid growth. Within this emerging discipline, which integrates modern biology with applied physics, chemistry and mathematics, new courses and laboratories are being created and existing courses revised. Not unexpectedly, the new curricula developed by the various programs have presented a rich landscape of ideas and teaching methods to help the students develop into creative and innovative engineers. Faculty are, in real time, discovering what works and what does not. With The Whitaker Foundation closing, it was timely to convene the 2005 summit meeting to help universities design and modify biomedical engineering programs to meet future needs. The spirit of the summit meeting was to look forward. The students studying biomedical engineering will pursue careers as future innovators of new medical diagnostic and therapeutic devices, physicians whose practice of medicine will be profoundly affected by the introduction of new technologies, and academicians pursuing new knowledge at the frontiers of biomedical engineering science, leading to the discovery of new technologies. Prior to the first summit meeting held in 2000, the Editorial Board of the Whitaker Foundation Teaching Materials program helped formulate a curriculum philosophy. The organization of the 2000 and 2005 summit meetings was guided by the educational goals proposed by The Whitaker Foundation to underpin its support of bioengineering and biomedical engineering education programs. BME Curriculum Philosophy 1. A thorough understanding of the life sciences, with the life sciences a critical component of the curriculum. 2. Mastery of advanced engineering tools and approaches. 3. Familiarity with the unique problems of making and interpreting quantitative measurements in living systems. 4. The ability to use modeling techniques as a tool for integrating knowledge. 5. The ability to formulate and solve problems with medical relevance, including the design of devices, systems, and processes to improve human health.