Is Clinical Engineering an occupation or profession?
Main Article Content
Keywords
Profession, Occupation, Vocation, Engineering, Clinical Engineering, credentialing, certification, Healthcare job, Qualification, Alliance, Engineer
Abstract
In this paper, we examine the practice level of engineers and discuss whether Clinical Engineering is a profession or an occupation. Many think that occupation and profession are synonyms, but are they? One must explore the difference, if it exists, between these terms, and to accomplish that, clarification of these terms is being offered and established first. We conducted a review of the terms and proceeded to identify if the tenants that are expected to be associated with professional standing are included in applying clinical engineering practices and to what level if it is. Engineering is a profession that improves the quality of living and for the common good. The professional education of engineers requires the education to contain a body of specialized knowledge, problem-solving skills, ethical behavior, and good analytical judgment in the service of all people. The engineering education domains aim to form individuals who are intellectually trained, practically adept, and ethically accountable for their work. Especially within the healthcare delivery system, engineering work engages problem-solving dependent upon sufficient body of knowledge to deal with practical problems by understanding the why, knowing how and identifying the when. There are various levels of the expected body of knowledge within the clinical engineering field ranging from engineers with formal academic training at undergraduate and graduate levels to clinical engineering technologists and technicians having graduated from between 1-4 years of academic training. Engineers may further select to publicly proclaim their adequate preparation and mastering of knowledge to conduct their work through a credentialing process that can confer the term professional, registered, or certified engineer if successfully achieved. Once the differences of working characteristics and obligations between occupation and profession are understood, it is clear that clinical engineers must continuously commit to pursue and fulfill these obligations. Therefore, every professional engineer is called on to achieve a certain degree of intellectual and technical mastery and acquire practical wisdom that brings together the knowledge and skills that best serve a particular purpose for the good of humanity. Clinical engineers and technologists are critical for sustaining the availability of safe, effective, and appropriate technology for patient care. It is as important for their associations to collaborate on compliance with professional obligations that their jobs require.
Downloads
Abstract 941 | PDF Downloads 792
References
2.MacMillan Dictionary – Words Form, Definition, Oc-cupation. Available at: OCCUPATION (noun) definition and synonyms | Macmillan Dictionary
3.MacMillan Dictionary - Words Form, Definitions, Job. Available at: JOB (noun) definition and synonyms | Macmillan Dictionary
4. MacMillan Dictionary - Words Form, Definitions, Profession. Available at: PROFESSION (noun) definition and synonyms | Macmillan Dictionary
5.National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES). Model Law. August 2006. Available at: http://ncees.org/wp-content/uploads/Model-Law.pdf6.
6.Sheppard S, Colby A, MaCatangay K, and Sullivan K. What is engineering practice? Int J Engng Ed 2006;22(3):429–38. Available at: https://www.ijee.ie.articles/vol22-3/02_ijee1751.pdf
7.Gardner HE, Shulman LS. The professions in America today. J Am Acad Arts Sci Daedalus 2005;1234(3)16. Available at: Daedalus_Su05_Professions-and-Profes-sionals.pdf (amacad.org)
8.Messer MA. Is nursing a profession? Am J Nurs Vol 1914;15(2):122–25. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3404530.pdf
9.US National Library of Medicine, MedlinePlus: Doctor of Medicine. Available at: https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/001936.htm
10.Abbasi K. Is medicine still a profession?, J Royal Soc Med (JRSM) 2009;102(9)353.
11.Conrad M. MedTerms Medical Dictionary, MedicineNet WebMD, Stoppler; 2020; Available at: https://www.medicinenet.com/medical_profession/definition.htm
12.Smith A. Distrust in self-driving cars on the rise after crashes, CNN Business, May 23, 2018. Available at: https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/22/technology/self-driving-cars-aaa/index.html
13.Britannica. Challenger Disaster, United States History. 1986. Available at https://www.britannica.com/event/Challenger-disaster
14.Lucas J What is engineering? Types of engineering, [Internet] Life Sci 2014. Available at: https://www.livescience.com/47499-what-is-engineering.html15. National Society of Professional Engineers. Defining the Practice of Engineering. 2018. Available at: https://www.nspe.org/sites/default/files/resources/pdfs/admin/publications/NSPE-PE-Definitions.pdf
15.National Society of Professional Engineers. Defining the Practice of Engineering. 2018. Available at: https://www.nspe.org/sites/default/files/resources/pdfs/admin/publications/NSPE-PE-Definitions.pdf
16.McGinn RE. Science, Technology, and Society, Prentice Hall Foundation of Modern Sociology Series, Prentice Hall, New Jersey;1991.
17.National Society of Professional Engineers. What is PE? Availabe at: https://www.nspe.org/resources/licensure/what-pe#:~:text=To%20become%20licensed%2C%20engineers%20must,from%20their%20state's%20licensure%20board.&text=To%20use%20the%20PE%20seal,steps%20to%20ensure%20their%20competency. (last visited May 25, 2021).
18.Wear JO. IFMBE/CED recognition of certification/regis-tration programs for clinical engineering practitioners, Global Clin Eng J 2020;2(2). Available at: https://www.globalce.org/index.php/GlobalCE/article/view/79 (last visited May 26, 2021).
19.IFMBE/European Alliance for Medical and Biological Engineering & Science. BIOMEDEA Draft Protocol for the Training of Clinical Engineers in Europe; 2005. (last visited May 26, 2021).
20.Inchingolo P. The Multi-level Education in Clinical Engineering of the University of Trieste, Biomedi-cal Engineering Preparing for the European Higher Education Area (BIOMEDEA -3), Stuttgart, Germany, Sept 23-25, 2005.
21.David Y. The professional clinical engineer, J Clin Engi-neer 1988;13(5):345–46. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/302366037_The_Profes-sional_Clinical_Engineer (last visited May 25, 2021).
22.Nascimento L, Calil S, Judd T, and David Y. Analysis of IFMBE-CED 2017 Worldwide Clinical Engineering Sur-vey, Global Clin Engineer J 2019;2(1):15–22. Available at: View of Analysis of IFMBE-CED 2017 Worldwide Clinical Engineering Survey (globalce.org) (last visited May 25, 2021).
23.Navaro K, Iduri B, Brockway S, Syed R. ACCE 2018 Body of Knowledge survey results, MDExpo, Houston, Texas 2019. Available at: https://mdexposhow.com/presentation/2018-acce-body-of-knowledge-bok-survey-results/ (last visited May 25, 2021).
24.Goodman G. The profession of clinical engineering. J Clin Engineer 1989;14(1):27–38. Available at: https://journals.lww.com/jcejournal/Abstract/1989/01000/The_Professio_of_Clinical_Engineering.8.aspx (last visited May 25, 2021).
25.US Department of Labor, Occupations Information for Bioengineers and Biomedical engineers. Available at: https://www.myskillsmyfuture.org/TargetOccupa-tionMatch.aspx?onetcode=17203100&detailonetcode=17203100&keyword=biomedical%20engineer&highestmatch=Bioengineers+and+Biomedical+Engineers&zipcode=0&radius=0&workPref=0&indgroup=0&indsize=0&TargetRequest=T
26.National Society of Professional Engineers, Defining the Practice of Engineering. March 2018;1-3. Available at: https://www.nspe.org/sites/default/files/resources/pdfs/admin/publications/NSPE-PE-Definitions.pdf
27.The National Society of Professional Engineers. The Professional Engineering. May 2007. Available at: https://www.nspe.org/sites/default/files/resources/pdfs/pemagazine/june2007_the_professional_engi-neering.pdf
28.World Health Organization. Manpower Development for a Health Care Technical Service, A report of the World Health Organization International Meeting on Manpower Development and Training for Health Care Equipment Management, Maintenance, and Repair, WHO/SHS/NHP/90.4, November 1989. Available at: https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/62102/WHO_SHS_NHP_90.4.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
29.National Environmental Health Association (NEHA). Difference between Credentials and Cer-tifications. Available at: https://www.neha.org/professional-development/education-and-training/differences-between-credentials-certifications
30.International Engineering Alliance. Graduate Attributes and Professional Competencies, Version 3; June 21, 2013. Available at: Graduate-Attributes-and-Professional-Competencies.pdf (last visited May 26, 2021).
Article Sidebar
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Author(s) must obtain all parties consent [co-author(s), others if applicable] and submit the acceptance of Copyright Agreement with their paper. Written permission must be obtained by the author for material that has been published in copyrighted material; this includes tables, figures, and quoted text that exceeds 150 words. A copy of all permissions must accompany the manuscript when published in copyrighted material. The author(s) hereby represents and warrants that the paper is original and that he/she is the author of the paper, except for material that is clearly identified as to its original source, with permission notices from the copyright owners where required. Author(s) must clearly indicate that approval for publication has been received in cases of institutional ownership.
In all submitted material authors retain all copyrights; however, the GlobalCE Journal reserve the right to reprint all or portions of the article and to post all or part of the article online. GlobalCE Journal reserves the right to edit manuscripts as required to publish in the journal. Authors are responsible for obtaining any and all clearances as appropriate. Unless stated otherwise, all articles are open-access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and original work (e.g. first published in the Global Clinical Engineering Journal) is properly cited with the original URL and bibliographic citation information. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on www.Globalce.org well as the copyright and license information must be included. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
