<p>I read someone's post in the premed forum that people who go into medicine solely for the money will get screwed over, because many doctors think that in the future, BME will be where the money is at in the field of biology and such. Is that true? Wouldn't the speciality surgeons still make more? I can understand GPs earning less because of all the garbage healthcare providers have to deal with nowadays, but BMEs dont make much from what I've seen, so how can they make that assertion?</p>
<p>They're lying or misinformed. I suspect that BME will gain in average income slightly - but not much. Biomedical engineers will face tremendous competition because traditional engineering disciplines & normal biologists will always be applied in the production of medical devices.</p>
<p>Mr Payne is right.</p>
<p>Also, due to the nature of biotech and/or biomedical device industry, the long-expected biotech boom won't occur like the IT and electronics industries did.
well, unless some revolutionary services that require a high demand of biologists and bioengineers are created.</p>
<p>i agree with the above posters. the medical device sector is small compared to other technology industries. there is no giant GE-type company. there are barely any lucrative defense contracts. and with regulation and steep R&D costs, new products are launched at a significantly less frequency. it's an exciting field, but at the same time it's still developing. for at least the next 5-10 years (and possibly more) it will stay that way. i remember reading somewhere that the progress of the medical device industry today can be likened to computers of the 1960s. we're still waiting for the transistor.</p>
<p>the "lucrative technology industries" mainly consist of it, computer companies, startups and consulting. To get into those fields u can have any engineering backround, you just need to take some computer classes. their is a tremendous amount of competition that mes, ees and cs majors will face from asia and india. job security in the bme field is better, not significantly, because it is a controlled environment. the downside is that like mr.payne and abhim said theres no google in the biotech field and it has very limited job opportunities.</p>
<p>great post. i have been raving ignorantly about bioE.</p>