In the medical device industry, teamwork begins at the conception of a product and continues through development. It may involve engineers, scientists, business managers, sales and marketing representatives, lawyers and regulatory experts. It is critical that someone understands and is able to work effectively in that multidisciplinary environment, building knowledge across disciplinary barriers. This is exactly what biomedical engineers are trained to do. This ability is increasingly important in industry because more and more products require a multidisciplinary approach.
Tissue engineering is a good example.
The ability to manipulate or manufacture human tissue for medical purposes draws on biomaterials, mechanical engineering, cell and molecular biology, chemistry and chemical engineering, and other areas of engineering, biology and physiology. Another factor in industry is the pace at which projects come and go. In academia a biomedical engineer could spend an entire career on one narrow area of research, becoming the world's expert in that area. Burke Mays, president of Mays and Associates Inc., a small medical services firm, says a major reason his company benefited from the work of biomedical engineering intern Ryan O'Toole of Vanderbilt University was that O'Toole was already up to speed. He had to understand the electrical engineering and the medical aspects of things.