We came across Dr. Ming-Chien Chyu when looking for the most forward-thinking educators. He is a professor of mechanical engineering and healthcare engineering at Texas Tech University, an adjunct professor in the school of medicine, and the founder of the Healthcare Engineering Alliance Society (HEALS). By bridging the gap between two extremely vital fields: engineering and healthcare, Dr. Ming-Chien Chyu has been leading the learning curve, encouraging innovation, and smashing barriers.
Dr. Ming-Chien Chyu described healthcare engineering as the specialisation of engineering that is involved in all facets of healthcare. Dr. Chyu, one of the most forward-thinking leaders in education, has developed a variety of initiatives and platforms that support the career success of young engineers and engineering students in the healthcare sector.
Dr. Ming-Chien Chyu founded one of the first graduate programmes in healthcare engineering, among other programmes and platforms he has founded. He created a ground-breaking certification programme with the goal of assisting engineering students and engineers globally in becoming qualified for positions in the healthcare sector. He develops techniques to better prepare engineering students for careers in the healthcare sector in collaboration with medical professionals and business executives.
He enlisted a team of medical professionals with technical knowledge to assist university instructors with teaching engineering students and overseeing healthcare research initiatives. Additionally, he was a trailblazer in the development of the first platform that helps engineers and engineering students find jobs and internships in the healthcare sector, as well as a platform that helps healthcare industry companies hire qualified engineers and engineering students.
According to our research, Dr. Ming-Chien Chyu is one of the few academics who has proven to be up for the task of pushing the envelope and making contributions that have broad, significant, and long-lasting effects on a crucial field outside of their own speciality.
The “Father of Healthcare Engineering” is Dr. Ming-Chien Chyu, a well-known pioneer in the field of healthcare engineering. Dr. Chyu was named one of the “Top 100 Innovators & Entrepreneurs” (cover story), “Best Inspiring Leaders of the Year,” “Innovation Excellence Award,” “Transformational Business Leaders of the Year,” “30 Most Inspiring Leaders to Watch 2022,” “Most Visionary Education Leaders,” “Most Influential Leaders in Healthcare 2022,” and “World’s Visionary Leaders Maki” for his accomplishments in the field of healthcare engineering. One of the “Most Influential Companies & Organisations” was named the Healthcare Engineering Alliance Society, which he created.
Dr. Ming-Chien Chyu is a pioneer in the field of healthcare engineering and one of the first proponents of using engineering principles in initiatives to improve healthcare delivery.
According to James P. Bagian, MD, PE, US National Academy of Medicine, US National Academy of Engineering, and former NASA astronaut, “Dr. Ming-Chien Chyu may have already secured a historical position in the development of healthcare engineering.”
Fazle Hussain, Ph.D., member of the World Academy of Science and the US National Academy of Engineering.
Founding of HEALS
Dr. Ming-Chien Chyu began his quest to prepare engineering students and engineers for positions in healthcare and assist healthcare professionals apply engineering to address healthcare problems in an effort to bridge the gap between engineering and healthcare. He was motivated by his enthusiasm and talent for innovation in this endeavour.
Dr. Ming-Chien Chyu formed the Healthcare Engineering Alliance Society (HEALS) to carry out this aim. He founded HEALS as a platform to assist engineering students and aspiring engineers in locating lucrative positions in the healthcare sector as well as to assist the healthcare sector in hiring skilled engineers for their various technology requirements.
He was aware of the wide range of needs for trained engineers with varied areas of competence in the healthcare sector. However, the main problem was that, with the exception of biomedical engineering, there was little to no content related to healthcare or biomedicine in the engineering curriculum (particularly in undergraduate programmes). Actually, there are a lot more opportunities in the healthcare sector for engineers with various specialisations, such as chemical, computer, electrical, and mechanical engineers.
The fact that the majority of engineering students are unaware of the numerous employment options in the healthcare sector is a serious problem. In order to close this gap, Dr. Ming-Chien Chyu established a programme in which medical professionals with knowledge of healthcare engineering and cutting-edge medical technology, especially the few MDs who also hold engineering degrees, were invited to give lectures to engineering students.
The primary subjects in the spotlight are healthcare concerns and issues that can be solved by engineering in order to enhance patient care and results and contribute to the transformation of the healthcare sector. Additionally, frequent, stimulating, and informative guest lectures by top engineers in the healthcare sector, particularly those engaged in and close to the medical technology domain, are offered. Professors from medical schools who also hold engineering degrees, as well as specialists who can comprehend and prepare these aspiring engineers in the most efficient and competent manner possible, all joined HEALS.
Significant Impacts
Dr. Ming-Chien Chyu created a cutting-edge certification programme that encompassed healthcare engineering and featured “Cutting-Edge Courses Customised” (CeCoCu). This programme enables and assists engineering students in preparing for employment chances in the healthcare industry.
Based on their educational backgrounds, areas of interest, professional objectives, and job opportunities in the market, participants in this programme are free to choose a topic, objective, and scope of learning. In addition to assisting engineering students in obtaining jobs in the healthcare industry, this certification programme also enables engineers to make the transition from other industries to the healthcare sector and aids medical professionals such as doctors, nurses, chemists and dentists in learning how to apply engineering principles to solve challenging medical problems and make use of cutting-edge engineering solutions.
Innovating the Learning Curve
In order to help engineering students get ready for careers in the healthcare/medical technology industry and to support the development of young healthcare engineers, Dr. Ming-Chien Chyu established the Healthcare Engineering Mentoring Programme. On this platform, healthcare engineering leaders and professionals volunteer their time to share their knowledge, expertise, and experience.
Dr. Ming-Chien Chyu has created a thorough, user-friendly medical device platform (Medical Device Net) that offers systematic state-of-the-technology information for all medical devices (currently over 270,000), including the most recent, cleared/approved by FDA. This platform is a powerful tool for students and healthcare engineering professionals to develop new medical devices.
The Platform that Makes It All Happen
Doctors and other healthcare professionals who have developed inventions to the point where they require assistance from engineers, researchers, consultants, or businesses to elevate to a level closer to FDA approval, manufacturing, and commercialization have been helped for years by Dr. Ming-Chien Chyu.
Dr. Ming-Chien Chyu, on the other hand, has assisted engineers, engineering professors/researchers, and businesses in connecting with physicians to ensure that their ideas or products will improve patient outcomes. Based on his experience, he created a platform that enables collaboration between engineers, researchers, inventors, consultants, business owners, and enterprises on projects that result in the commercialization of new medical technology and equipment.
The platform’s main purpose is to gather a variety of technical projects that deal with unmet needs in patient care, typically coming from doctors, engineers, and manufacturers of medical devices and technology who are looking to collaborate on ideation, research, design, prototyping, testing, clinical trials, regulatory compliance, FDA clearance/approval, manufacture, capital funding, etc.
The platform also offers fantastic learning opportunities for engineering students, giving them the chance to get real-world experience working on healthcare initiatives with clinicians, engineers, and businesses.
Bridging the Gap between Engineering and Healthcare
Finding the best publication venue is never easy, especially for engineering researchers, aspirants, and students working in the healthcare industry. Their publications might be rejected, just like in conventional engineering journals, if there aren’t enough qualified engineering review panels and there are too many healthcare references. The same applies if they want to publish their papers in publications devoted to medicine or health care. Healthcare experts wanting to publish their engineering research encounter the same difficulties.
Dr. Ming-Chien Chyu launched the Journal of Healthcare Engineering and acted as its inaugural editor-in-chief to address this unimportant but crucial problem. One of the first scientific journals to cover the distinctive nexus between engineering and healthcare is this one. The magazine heavily emphasises the direct influence on patient outcomes while promoting collaborative research between engineers and healthcare professionals.
The Healthcare Engineering Online Communities, a platform that unites the engineering and healthcare communities, was also introduced by Dr. Ming-Chien Chyu. It offers the most recent information on more than 500 topics, including artificial intelligence, 3D printing in medicine, engineering for cancer diagnosis, nanomedicine, and many others.
The Initial Journey
Almost everyone expressed interest in and belief in Dr. Ming-Chien Chyu’s first efforts to bridge the gap between engineering and healthcare, but very few actually took action and committed to working together to make a difference.
Dr. Ming-Chien Chyu can easily be among the first to assume responsibility for bridging the gap between the two seemingly disparate professions and also approach hundreds of professionals one-on-one who belong in the junction of healthcare and engineering, to ideate, build, and execute solutions. Dr. Ming-Chien Chyu continues, “It was a challenging journey from ‘not sure what I am doing’ to creating wonderful and uncharted connections with more and more people, sharing the same passion, and helping students and people with various needs while creating synergy between healthcare and engineering.
We now live in a world where engineering is more and more important in providing the healthcare sector with cutting-edge, sophisticated, and ground-breaking solutions. Through inventive developments in the engineering realm, the healthcare sector has advanced significantly.
However, Dr. Chyu encountered difficulties when he first began his journey in defining healthcare engineering and what it entails for students, coworkers, university authorities, and in practical implementations. With the help of more than 280 reviewers from around the world and 40 professional co-authors, Dr. Chyu established the term “Healthcare Engineering” in a seminal whitepaper and on the current Wikipedia page. His definition and efforts have been the cornerstone for the growth of this singular and revolutionary industry.
Building the Team and Network
Dr. Chyu had to overcome obstacles while initially establishing his network and team of knowledgeable individuals working alongside the coasts of engineering and healthcare, in order to fulfil the vision and objective he set out with.
He made an effort to find highly qualified and in-demand interdisciplinary specialists, such as medical doctors with experience in healthcare engineering and medical technology innovation, especially those MDs with engineering degrees, patents, or employment with or in the healthcare industry. Additionally, Dr. Ming-Chien Chyu looked for engineering professors at medical schools and industrial experts in the healthcare sector.
Dr. Ming-Chien Chyu engaged and talked with these specialists with a clear vision, an open mind, and creative ideas, comprehending the variety of positions and differences in beliefs and respecting each person’s philosophies, knowledge, and views. As his organisation expands, he now not only interacts with its members and followers but also goes out to strangers to get more suggestions on how to improve healthcare engineering.
“A great idea is usually generated after talking with multiple individuals, particularly those professionals on the frontline of patient care and medical technology development.”, Dr. v adds.
Growing Leadership and Expertise
Dr. Chyu believes that a variety of variables have contributed to his success, with continual communication and learning from many professionals who may offer priceless counsel and provocative ideas being among the most significant. As an engineer, he says, “I value every conversation with a doctor or other healthcare professional.”
Given how quickly the field of healthcare engineering develops, he believes that the students, engineers, and healthcare professionals who sought his assistance have driven him to constantly stay abreast of the most recent ideas and technologies. As a result, he has been able to grow and evolve.
Message to the Education Leaders
University professor Dr. Ming-Chien Chyu is committed to both teaching and research. Nevertheless, despite his busy schedule, Dr. Chyu makes extra efforts to create chances to empower and assist individuals, not just on the university campus but also at a national and even international level.
He exhorts university professors, especially tenured senior professors, to be keen in identifying the needs of the community or society, to be prudent in defining the niche and the scope, and to be bold and passionate about acting to provide leadership that makes a difference while assisting others in achieving their goals.
He thinks senior professors with tenure are frequently the most qualified, appropriate, and socially responsible for taking on such tasks and that there are always some issues in society and academic communities that need to be addressed by organised expertise, but his advice is to be ready for a solitary, demanding, treacherous, and unpredictable journey that may require more than a passion to move forward.
