History of how BME has benefit society ( artificial heart )

To further understand the essential question of how Biomedical Engineering can benefit the society of the world, it is critical for one to comprehend how biomedical engineering has benefited the past in History to juxtapose how it benefits society in today’s time. 

       One major key part of Biomedical Engineering is the idea of having a replacement organ, a well-known component of Biomedical engineering that has benefited society. I will use the example of the artificial heart, to assess the idea of how in history, biomedical engineering ( not considered BME back then) has benefited that society.   Thanks to a research paper conducted by a MIT student, I was able to conduct this research.

          The MIT research conducted provides the historical background of heart replacement and the artificial heart, a key example of how BME can help society.  According to this research, the early form of this transplant procedure was conducted during Ancient Egypt. Egyptian healers attached removed human skin to the faces of wounded Egyptian Warriors in order to improve the physical appearance. Since then though, the process of attaching an organ of the body has greatly evolved through history, One problem though, as time goes by, further demand of heart transplants increased and was greatly recognized throughout the medical community.  Due to this recognition, increased demand, and not to mention vast increased in technology, more and more engineers have become interested to sort of “meddle” with medicine and attempt to create suitable organ replacements. 

          The earliest form of an artificial heart is known to be the work of Dr. William Kolff, from the University Of Utah Medical School. In the late fifties, Dr. Kolff transplanted an early form of an artificial heart to his dog, the canine died after only an hour and a half after the procedure. During the early 70s, Robert K. Jarvik managed to create the first human artificial heart.  The Jarvik 7, an improved version of his original work was crated four years later and approved by the Medical community for Human Transplant. To this day, further advancements are currently being done.

    This information presented, accurately helps me understand how historically, early forms of BME have benefited society and influenced the modern and striving discipline of BME today.  As stated by the MIT journal,

     “Today estimates Suggest that although 35, 000 Americans could benefit from a heart transplant, less than 4,000 actually place themselves on the waiting list. Given that 2,2oo hearts are donated per year, many Americans spend months, years and even die before replacement organs are made available to them. Although patients who do receive replacement hearts consider themselves fortunate, they can not escape the many problems that are linked to the use of donor organs, such as tissue rejection, inflection, and long time compatibility” ( Wang).

Wang , Jiao. "A Suitable replacement Citation." MIT. (2006): n. page. Web. 20 Nov. 2011. <http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/biological-engineering/20-010j-introduction-to-bioengineering-be-010j-spring-2006/assignments/wang_paper_final.pdf>.