Is There a Specific Professional Act for Clinical Engineers?

Abstract

In hospitals, biomedical engineer has several names: adviser in biomedical engineering, biomedical technology advisor, biomedical engineer, clinical biomedical engineer, clinical engineer or simply engineer. Biomedical engineering exists in Quebec hospitals for over forty years. The recent transformation of Quebec health network in integrated center of health and social services, and in integrated academic center of health and social services, revealed that the role of biomedical engineers in hospitals is misunderstood. Moreover, to date, there does not seem to exist a reserved professional act for clinical engineer while his counterpart medical physicist has a field of practice in radiation therapy, radiation protection and dosimetry. Given this state of facts, we suggest to share some reflections that may help to better understand some of the clinical engineer’s roles that are similar to reserved tasks or exclusive professional acts.