EBME Forums Forums Management Recruitment The NHS

Does anybody know anything about the role of Medical Engineers in the NHS? When I say medical engineers I dont mean the technicians who service the equipment but the Clinical Technicians who actually carry out the research and development etc.

I am interested in working in the NHS and want to know how I would go about it. Would appreciate all the help I can get.

Many thanks

Sukhjeevan

Welcome to the Club, Mate.

I see that you are a medical engineering graduate. My advice would be to forget about “research and development” if you want to work in the NHS. If you follow the topics posted on this website for any length of time, you will find, however, that you are ideally qualified to “service the equipment”! Such jobs are regularly posted on this website under “Jobs”.

Good luck.

A little blunt to say the least But so very true all the same ...

LIII

Sukhjeevan,
There is an official NHS route to techie-researchy areas, see:
http://www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/nhs-knowledge_base/data/4868.html

or

www.ipem.ac.uk
and look at the "Grade A Training" stuff.

It's just for people with engineering or physics degrees, and is massively over-subscribed. It takes 2½ years to get through and there's no guarentee of a job at the end of it, but you will have done an MSc, written 4 80-page portfolios and you will have to explain your job in ridiculous length to anyone you meet, but you do get paid

Hence (I believe) stems the root of Louis' and Geoff's Cynicism...

Anyway - the course has a yearly closing date of February, so if you're interested, go for it!

Good Luck,

David
(Current Grade A Slave, erm sorry, I mean Trainee)

Sukhjeevan,
There are people still working in medical equipment development, but this tends to be a side-line in the NHS. In fact we periodically have to hide our development activities (by smoke screen) when finances are tight. So not a good career move ...
However, there are several university departments of physics and engineering which have teams researching and developing medical equipment. Just look at cities with Medical Schools to find them. You could attach to one of those university department but of course you lose on job security. So possibly not a good career move ...
If you are lucky you might find an enthusiastic clinician in the NHS building a team to carry out R&D. But you would be best based in an EBME department while you look for such a chance.
Good luck
Mark