Professional Development Course of Nigerian Institute for Biomedical Engineering

Short Report of the 2003 Event

The 2003 Professional Development Course of Nigerian Institute for Biomedical Engineering (NIBE) was held between 21st and 23rd October 2003 at the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Shika-Zaria, Kaduna State of Nigeria. Tagged COURSE 2003, the short course with the theme Engineering in Medicine and Biology was designed to bring the participants technical and professional knowledge up to date with current views of biomedical engineering at a global level.

In addition to these, the course formed a qualifying course for Associates of NIBE seeking admission into the class of Members.

A Professional Development Board with the able assistance of the Executive Committee of NIBE carried out the planning of the course.

The course started with arrival and registration of participants for the course on Day One. Guests also arrived for the opening ceremony, where formalities were fully observed. Afterwards the course had a break for coffee.

At about 2.30pm the course resumed with a paper titled "Engineering Analysis of Physiological Systems" by K. I. Nkuma-Udah. The paper was thoroughly discussed and at the end, the course was in agreement that for effective biomedical engineering practice, every professional in the field should have a fair knowledge of physiology.

Day Two, Wednesday 22nd October 2003, started at about 10.00am. Five papers were presented on this day. They were "Instrumentation Systems in the laboratory" by S. A. Adisa; "Human Cloning: The Ethical Issues" by K. I. Nkuma-Udah; "Occupational Health Hazards" by O. O. Ndukwe; "Application of Nuclear and Radiation Science to Biology and Medicine" by C. U. Eze; and "Appropriate Biomedical Equipment Maintenance Culture" by B. A. Adegboye. Each of the papers was duly discussed at the end.

The last day of the course featured two papers. These were "Current issues in HIV/AIDS" by G. I. Ndubuka and "The moral aspects of Biotechnology" by E. O. Aluyor. Each of the two courses was discussed at the end. A revision session and course evaluations were held for participants. At the end, a Professional Certificate in Biomedical engineering was awarded to all the participants during the closing ceremony that ended at about 1.45pm.

On the whole, the course can be said to be poorly attended especially when compared to last year's course in Lagos. This is probably due to the fact that the event was poorly advertised and because of a lack of funds. Only 24 participants attended the course when we were expecting an improved attendance over last year's 44.