Bulgarian Society of Biomedical Physics and Engineering section of Biomedical Engineering
Brief history of the Society
The Bulgarian Society of Biomedical Physics and Engineering (BSBMPE) was founded in 1971. Previously the physicists were members of the National Radiological Society. Since 1967 engineers were within the Bulgarian Physiological Society, Section Medical Engineering. BSBMPE is a collective member of the European Federation of Medical Physics (EFOMP) and the International Federation of Medical and Biological Engineering (IFMBE).
Biomedical engineering is an established profession in Bulgaria, with university education in this field since 1974. X-ray and electrical therapy instrumentation were introduced in the country long before the Second World War. Local production of electrotherapy devices started in about 1956-57. Several years later the Institute of Medical Engineering was established, with the task of development and production supervision of medical instrumentation. A research and clinical engineering department was created within the medical university. Nowadays, their successor is the Centre of Biomedical Engineering (CBME) at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
Clinical engineering has also a long tradition in Bulgaria. Many engineers and technicians operate in this field, some of them in service departments, as representatives of foreign manufacturers and some as clinical engineers in the larger hospitals throughout the country.
The most eminent members of these institutions, initially more than 50, belonged to the Biomedical Engineering Section of the Society. Lately this number decreased to 20, basically due to the political changes in Central and Eastern Europe, reflecting on the status of our colleagues. There has been a decline of activities in local production, hospital services, and the introduction of modern equipment and instrumentation. Therefore, some young specialists emigrated to developed countries.
Present state of the Society
There are various BSBMPE activities with different intensities. They include:
- organisation of national conferences
- distribution of information on scientific conferences and symposia abroad
- review of new books
- approbation of dissertations or publications
- celebration of anniversaries of important scientific events
- participation in the education andin particular, in the organisation of postgraduate training of medical physicists and engineers
- consultations to the Ministry of Health and other government agencies on major problems such as evaluation of tenders, purchase of medical instrumentation, licensing of service departments, etc.
Good contacts are maintained with IFMBE and EFOMP, as well as with the International Organisation of Medical Physics (IOMP). They help us with information and sometimes with support for participation in international schools and conferences. The IOMP and colleagues from the IEEE EMBS Magazine donated many books and journals to our Society , which are available to all our colleagues. The Society has good relations with parent organisations in Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Greece and Turkey.
Science, research and teaching activities
Actually, science and research activities in biomedical engineering are concentrated mainly in several institutions in Sofia. They are the CBME, the bioengineering groups in the Institute of Physiology and the Institute of Biophysics (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences), the Faculty and the Chair of Electronics in Technical University (TU) - Sofia, the Clinical Engineering Departments in the Medical University and the Military Medical Academy. More than 350 papers on different topics of biomedical engineering have been published in international scientific journals and books by our colleagues, cited by more than 800 authors abroad.
The majority of the engineers of these groups are TU-Sofia graduates in medical electronics. The specialisation in medical electronics attracts many students. In spite of some decline of interest in engineering sciences, the number of annual graduates in this field average 20.
Recently, an intensive collaboration between TU - Sofia and CBME has been established. PhD and Diploma theses are jointly supervised and common projects are developed. Educational activities in biomedical engineering were undertaken in the final years by the Technical Universities of Varna, Plovdiv and also Gabrovo. Owing to an EU supported TEMPUS project, possibilities were offered for about ten Bulgarian students to attend the International Postgraduate Bioengineering Course in the University of Patras in Greece. Bulgarian Professors had the opportunity to participate as teachers in this course.
A TEMPUS Inter-University Centre for Education and Training in Medical Physics and Engineering was organised in Plovdiv, supported by King’s College London and the Universities of Dublin and Florence.
A considerable part of biomedical engineers and society members obtained high scientific degrees and positions. For example, four Professors and 11 Associate Professors are with the CBME. Among them five have a DSc degree and the remaining have PhD degrees. Four of the collaborators are presently Guest Professors in USA, France, UK and Germany.
Fifteen years ago, a team of Bulgarian specialists were the first in the world to develop and produce microprocessor ECG instruments. Their performances were later adopted by all leading manufacturers: (i) multi-channel amplifiers built with reduced number of operational amplifiers thus obtaining 12 lead synchronous signals; (ii) digital signal processing including full power line interference cancellation without affecting the original signal morphology, effective drift suppression, wave onset and offset detection, parameter measurement and diagnostic classification and (iii) micro-dot thermal printer for ECG recording, free of linear and non-linear distortions. These instruments were manufactured by EMA-Engineering Co for nearly two decades, a considerable part of them being exported even in developed countries.
The Society holds its regular scientific conferences every four years. Bulgarian and foreign biomedical physicists and engineers have actively participated by presenting papers and by joining discussions. Scientists from the USA, France, Germany, England, India and from all Central and Eastern European countries took part in the six conferences which have been held since 1972. The Fifth Conference in 1988 included a WHO Symposium on Medical Technology Assessment, dealing with major medical, bioengineering and medical physics problems on evaluation of needs of modern procedures and instrumentation. The Sixth (1992) and Seventh (1996) conferences attracted all local physicists and engineers involved in research, but a modest number of guests from abroad.
Outlook
Severe financial difficulties prevent participation of our members in international congresses, conferences and symposia abroad. However, in spite of the country's economy problems and the emigration, there is optimism for a better future, based on the considerable scientific and technological experience and competence of our engineers.
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Prof. Ivan Dotsinsky Centre of Biomedical Engineering Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Email: iadoc@argo.bas.bg |
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