Medicine by Design: The Practice and Promise of Biomedical Engineering

by Fen Montaigne

A heart that once beat erratically has regained its natural rhythm. A woman paralyzed by an automobile accident is now able to resume her favorite hobby. Physicians using a robotic surgeon named da Vinci perform lifesaving operations. These are some of the feats of biomedical engineering, one of the fastest-moving areas in medicine. In this exhilarating book, award-winning writer Fen Montaigne journeys through this little-known world, sharing the stories of ordinary people who have been transformed by technology. From the almost commonplace pacemaker to the latest generation of artificial hearts, Montaigne tells the stories of pioneering patients, engineers, and surgeons. Taking the reader behind the scenes of a dozen of America's leading centers of biomedical engineering, Montaigne recounts the field's history while describing cutting-edge work in medical imaging, orthopedics, cardiovascular care, neurological therapies, and genetics. Through the stories of patients whose lives have been saved and improved by biomedical devices, Montaigne reveals the marriage of medicine and engineering to be one of society's greatest advances.

248 pages, Hardcover

First published April 5, 2006

About the author

Fen Montaigne is a journalist and author whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, National Geographic, Outside, Smithsonian, and The Wall Street Journal. A former Moscow bureau chief of The Philadelphia Inquirer, he is the author of Reeling in Russia and has co-authored two other books. For his work on Fraser’s Penguins, Montaigne was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006. He now works as senior editor of the online magazine Yale Environment 360.

Reviews

[Kokila · Rating 5 out of 5]

Being a first year student in bioengineering I was searching for something besides a textbook that’ll help me explore the field a bit more. ‘Medicine by Design’, being the very first book I read on biomedical engineering, suited my purpose perfectly. I got to learn so many rich details and stories behind leading biomedical companies and university programs that you won’t find easily just by surfing the web.

At first I thought this book may be top heavy with information and that it’ll be a boring read, however factual. But I was wholly wrong. The author maintains a light, narrative prose throughout the chapters while still managing to deliver tons of information. This book provides a bird’s eye view of how biomedical engineering devices are used to counter many health issues like heart problems, paralysis, diseases like Parkinson’s, problems on bones and joints and it even explores the shift in the field from mechanical devices to engineering at the micro- and nano- levels and also how dominant a role computer imaging plays. I may not be the best judge of how comprehensive this book is but it definitely helped me become more actively involved in my major.

[Rin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is something to read if you're interested in learning about the field of bio medical engineering and how far it's come in the past half century. If you're looking for one of those books to read while you're drinking coffee with your book club, I don't think this is it. It's something that only a biological science/medicine lover would pick up. Nothing like the watered down NYT bestsellers that brush over topics. It's more of a historical report on engineering in the life sciences. Even the anecdotes are the kind only a scientist would love. I wish that it were a book I could do the former with, so I'm being petty and withholding two stars.