Page 14 - Biomedical Engineering and Design Handbook Volume 1, Fundamentals

VISION STATEMENT

The First Edition of this handbook, which was called the Standard Handbook of Biomedical
Engineering and Design, was published in the fall of 2002. It was a substantial reference work, with
39 chapters spread over the major areas of interest that constitute the discipline of biomedical
engineering—areas in which biomedical engineering can exert its greatest impact on health care.
These areas included biomedical systems, biomechanics of the human body, biomaterials, bioelec-
tronics, medical device design, diagnostic equipment design, surgery, rehabilitation engineering,
prosthetics design, and clinical engineering. Coverage within each of the areas was not as broad as
I would have liked, mainly because not all of the assigned chapters could be delivered in time to
meet the publication schedule, as is often the case with large contributed works (unless the editor
keeps waiting for remaining chapters to stagger in while chapters already received threaten to become
out-of-date). So, even as the First Edition was being published, I looked forward to a Second Edition
when I could secure more chapters to fill in any gaps in the coverage and allow contributors to add
greater depth to chapters that had already been published.
The overall plan for the Second Edition of what is now called the Biomedical Engineering and
Design Handbook was to update 38 chapters that were in the First Edition (one chapter of a personal
nature was dropped) and add 14 new chapters, including chapters with topics that were assigned for
the First Edition but were not delivered, plus chapters with entirely new topics. Because of the size
of the Second Edition, I recommended splitting it into two volumes, with 24 chapters in Volume 1
and 28 chapters in Volume 2. The split is natural: the first volume covers fundamentals, and the
second volume covers applications.
The two volumes have been arranged as follows:
Volume 1: Fundamentals
Part 1: Biomedical Systems Analysis
Part 2: Biomechanics of the Human Body
Part 3: Biomaterials
Part 4: Bioelectronics
Volume 2: Applications
Part 1: Medical Device Design
Part 2: Diagnostic Equipment Design
Part 3: Surgery
Part 4: Rehabilitation Engineering and Prosthetics Design
Part 5: Clinical Engineering
Overall, more than three-quarters of the chapters in the Second Edition are new or updated—a
quarter cover topics not included in the First Edition and are entirely new, and over half have been
updated. The Preface to each volume provides detail about the parts of the handbook and individual
chapters.
The intended audience for the handbook is practicing engineers, physicians, and medical
researchers in academia, hospitals, government agencies, and commercial, legal, and regulatory
organizations, as well as upper-level students. Many potential readers work in the field of biomedical

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