Hello to all IET and Network members.
This latest community update arrives at the busiest time of the year for the HTN: several major events have just taken place and more are on the immediate horizon. Before I go into any more detail, I would like to ask for suggestions by email for our programme of events for the twelve months from October 2015. The committee will be meeting in a few weeks to map out the events and activities which we intend to offer for the coming year and as always we want to ensure that these reflect the needs of the healthcare TPN and wider biomedical engineering community. We have prepared a case study of this process on the myCommunity site and I would urge you all to read it to understand how the community can drive the events we put on: https://communities.theiet.org/groups/blogpost/view/58/148/2364
The last few months have seen several key HTN events take place. The first of these was the Healthcare Technologies Student and Early Career Awards on the 25th of February. Despite a new format for the event, jointly organised with the IMechE’s Biomedical Engineering Association (BmEA), and a somewhat abbreviated entry window it was a real pleasure to see the volume and quality of entries for our awards first-hand in my capacity as a judge. The standard of presentations on the day from all those shortlisted for the Dennis Hill and William James awards was very high and the J.A. Lodge Award (for engineers working at the early stage of their careers in the field of research and development within Biomedical Engineering) had the highest number of entries in recent memory.
You can find a digest of the event based on our social media coverage (@IETHealthTech) here:
https://communities.theiet.org/groups/blogpost/view/58/148/2206#.VTzTCyFViko
Many congratulations to the three IET award winners:
- J.A. Lodge – Dr Christian Linte (Rochester Institute of Technology, NY)
- William James Award – Pior Laszczak (University of Southampton)
- Dennis Hill – Tricia Adjei (University of Surrey)
This month saw the second Joint Lecture on Healthcare Engineering hosted by the HTN and the BmEA. This year’s speaker was Dr David Delpy, former Research Vice-Provost of University College of London and CEO of EPSRC, now Chair of the Defence Scientific Advisory Council and Chair of the Strategic Advisory Board for the UK National Quantum Technologies Programme. Dr Delpy gave a frank and far-reaching account of his career at the forefront of research into physiological monitoring, providing practical insights around the challenges and opportunities presented by the commercialisation of new biomedical technologies emanating from a university setting. This event was the latest organised by the HTN that gives out CPD hours as part of the IET’s SPD Monitoring Scheme: http://www.theiet.org/membership/career/cpd/policy/index.cfm. If you weren’t able to attend, you can watch the lecture again courtesy of IET.tv: https://tv.theiet.org/?videoid=6712
Looking ahead at another event which includes CPD accreditation, our joint event with the Royal Society of Medicine will be taking place at the Academy of Medical Sciences on the 6th May. The event is entitled “The Future of Medicine – Technology and the Role of the Doctor in 2025” and represents the culmination of a year’s planning and organisation. I am very excited by this event and for future collaborations with the RSM on technical specialist topics of relevance to clinicians and engineers alike.
Finally I would encourage you to keep checking the HTN’s myCommunity page where events and news of interest to our members are posted on a regular basis alongside our Twitter account @IETHealthTech.
Check back in a few months for news of more activities including our plan for 2015-16 and I look forward to meeting you at one of our upcoming events!
Dr Peter Bannister
Chairman, IET Healthcare Technologies Network
prbannister@theiet.org
