When
starting in the field of medical devices, you need a strong background in
biology and the biological sciences. A
post graduate degree in some field of engineering, like chemical engineering, can
be very useful. Medical devices is a
field where creative people invent and develop products for use in the medical
sciences.
The
medical device field has a broad range of products, including coronary artery
stents, orthopedic devices, dental products, surgical products and bone
transplantation products. Some of the
larger companies create a variety of medical products. Smaller companies may make only one or two
products. You can work at a company that
doesn’t manufacture any products, but has a heavy research dynamic. Working in medical devices usually means
working in private industry. The only
governmental jobs available for medical devices are jobs at the US Patent
Office, where you review products for their uniqueness and feasibility, and the
FDA, which approves the safety of the products.
Corporations that make
Medical Devices
- Covidien. Covidien provides medical
devices to a hospitals, clinics, home care and long term care facilities. They identify clinical medical needs and
provide products and services in areas like contrast media, electrosurgery,
surgical stapling, laparoscopic instrumentation and pulse oximetry. Two of its
leading products are Autosuture and Kendall.
They have a total of 42,000 employees in sixty countries, and focus on
growth, leveraging their global culture, innovation and portfolio management. - Boston Scientific. Boston Scientific has created
breakthrough medical devices and products for more than thirty years. Its focus is on non-invasive medicine, and it
has about 25,000 employees and 17 medical manufacturing facilities throughout
the world. It has a total of 15,717
outstanding patents worldwide. It runs
clinical studies designed to create medical products and has awarded more than
85 community grants and 100 medical fellowships in 2009 alone. - Johnson
& Johnson. Johnson
& Johnson makes medical devices and products for the hospital, operating
room and laboratories. Their products include hip replacement, coronary artery
stents and tests for those who have headaches, breast cancer or diabetes. They have both a medical device and
pharmaceutical division. - Thermo Fisher Scientific. Thermo Fisher has several
divisions, including a healthcare division.
Key products include rapid screening tests, especially for flu viruses,
and clinical healthcare products. This
company has an active research and development department that creates new
products for laboratory and hospital use. - Medtronic.
Medtronic makes medical
devices for chronic diseases. They have
several different areas of medical expertise, including cardiac rhythm
disease
management (pacemakers primarily), spinal and biologics, cardiovascular,
neuromodulation, diabetic devices and surgical devices. They have an
international division. Their work in heart rhythm control dates back
to the creation of the first pacemaker in 1957.
Among other products, they make implantable defibrillators. - Baxter International. In the area of medical devices, Baxter
International provides solutions for drug delivery systems for hospitals all
over the world. For those with renal
conditions, this company is one of the leading corporations for home and
in-hospital dialysis equipment. It has
an active research department that strives to develop new products for multiple
medical areas of expertise. - Stryker. This company specializes in
medical equipment for emergency departments and EMS systems, including
evacuation equipment, and emergency cots.
There are also product categories in the area of orthopedics, pain
management, spinal medicine, trauma medicine and operating room equipment. There are job opportunities in the areas of
intellectual property and technology, among others.
There are a number of
smaller companies out there. There are small companies all over the country
and the world that make one or two products and are looking for someone in
research and development to maximize the products they’ve got or to create new
products. You need to search the web for
these corporations or work with a recruiter.
Job Titles
You
can have a number of different job titles working in companies that create and
manufacture medical devices. You could
work in sales at any one of the above corporations, where you would sell the
company’s products worldwide. You could
be a project manager in a research and development team or a scientist in
research and development. You could
also be a product developer in areas of new product development. Some job titles include “product developer” or
“program manager in medical products”.
Investigative manager is another job title you could aspire to. As a postgraduate in Engineering and Biology,
you will be in the best position to get the choice jobs in the research and
development of new products.
Resources for Finding Jobs
in Medical Products
Many
of the large corporations have career opportunities on their websites. Some of the smaller corporations have career
opportunities posted on their sites. You
can check out the Medical Device sections of large job boards like Career
Builder or the smaller career
sites dedicated to careers in the biomedical sciences.
What does it take to do jobs
in these areas?
Much
of your skill set depends on what kind of job you are interested in. If you are
working in research and development, you may need bench skills and strong
engineering skills. You may manage a
team of people all working on the same problem or project so that you need some
communication skills and the ability to lead a team. You need skills in strategy because you will
be creatively coming up with new product ideas.
Travel is possible if you are working on a bicoastal product or working
with a group in another country.
If
you will be working in the area of sales, you will need strong communication
and “people skills” and should be prepared to travel a lot. Work in sales implies you know the product
very well and have the written and spoken skills to get that across to other
people.
Is this very competitive?
There
is a lot of money to be made in the field of new medical products, so the
competition is fierce. The thing you
have as your advantage is to be well trained in engineering, medicine and/or biology. Make sure your coursework involves these
areas before expecting to make top dollar in the field of medical
products. You can always invent a product
as a post graduate and can bring your idea to a company to see if they’ll hire
you and your idea at the same time.
What is the pay like?
Much of the pay depends on where you work. If you work in sales, your pay can be about
$50,000. If you are hired as a higher up in research and development of medical
products, your pay can be more than $100,000.
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