Engineering Based Medicine
Evidence based medicine (EBM) has been recognized by the medical doctors in the recent years and has started to shift their medical practice idea from evidence base to engineering base. Umezu laboratory has been advocating the engineering base medicine, another EBM, since year 2008. The objective of this lab is to deliver engineering based data to surgeons to spread the idea of engineering based medicine to the field of surgery.
A New way to collaborate
Umezu laboratory has been contributing to the medical field by engineering approach. Research of artificial organs has been known as a study in the medical field, but its elements are combination of basic engineering technology, and medical evidences and knowledge. Artificial organs require development of materials, designs, and design techniques which are all specialty of engineering. The needs of engineering technology are not only in the development of artificial organs, but cardiovascular modeling and simulations, and surgical training and navigation system are few examples of contributions engineering can deliver to the medical field.
Our laboratory has been practicing the true medical-engineering collaboration through researches. We believe that the true medical-engineering collaboration is not to simply deliver the engineering seeds to the needs in the medical field, but to fuse the needs and seeds of both fields. We practice our philosophy to establish the true medical-engineering collaboration by setting our lab at the TWIns where there are no walls between department of engineering and medical school of two different universities, Waseda University and Tokyo Women’s University.