Skip to content

Learn

Clinical engineering careers.

Clinical engineers keep a hospital's medical technology safe and working, from the day a device is bought to the day it is taken out of service. Here is what the work involves and how to prepare for it.

What clinical engineers do

The work a department runs on.

  • Run the work orders

    Every fault, planned maintenance job and installation is a work order in the CMMS, with what was done, the parts, the time and who did it.

  • Keep the fleet safe

    Planned preventive maintenance, electrical safety tests and performance checks, before anything fails.

  • Buy the right device

    Requirements, tender specifications, comparisons and the total cost of ownership, not just the price.

  • Install and commission

    Acceptance testing and commissioning: proving new equipment works as designed, in its real location, before it is used on patients.

  • Investigate incidents

    Find what really happened when a device is involved in harm or a near miss, and stop it happening again.

  • Act on recalls and safety notices

    Find every affected unit through the asset register, act on the field safety notice and record it.

  • Plan rooms and departments

    Work with planners on clinical rooms, power, medical gases and equipment, against HBN and HTM guidance and IEC 60364-7-710.

  • Manage the technology

    Capital plans, replacement priorities, spare parts and downtime, so a hospital's technology keeps running under pressure.

Where they work

Inside and around the hospital.

  • Hospital engineering departments. The clinical engineering or biomedical engineering team that maintains the fleet, supports the wards and works with clinical staff on safe use.
  • Device companies, distributors and service organisations. Field and service engineers install, maintain and support the devices they sell, and need to understand how the hospital uses and procures them.
  • Consultancy and projects. Planning, procuring, installing, commissioning and handing over new clinical areas.
  • Universities. Teaching biomedical and clinical engineering, and running the programmes that train the next engineers.

A career, in three stories

From the first day to the investigation.

The three Medical City stories follow the arc of a clinical engineering career, 200 missions each. In First Day you are a junior clinical engineer, mentored by a senior engineer. In The Commission you are a consultant who plans, procures, installs, commissions and hands over a new surgical wing. In The Investigation you lead an independent investigation into unexplained device incidents.

Skills to build

What every clinical engineer needs.

  • How each device works, how it fails and how it is checked
  • Electrical safety testing to IEC 62353 and the IEC 60601 series
  • Risk management to ISO 14971, and risk assessments for every task
  • Asset registers, CMMS records and work orders
  • Business cases, tender specifications and total cost of ownership
  • Explaining a device to clinicians, in their language

Prepare

Before your first day on the ward.

  • Know the devices. Work through the devices you will meet first. See how to learn medical devices.
  • Know the checks. See medical device maintenance basics.
  • Do the job before you have it. The 12 Medical City simulations cover the work above: Clinical Engineer Campaign, Equipment Procurement, Installation and Commissioning, Preventive Maintenance, Patient Safety Investigator and Hospital Operations Manager among them.
  • Show what you can do. The Portfolio Builder turns your progress into a portfolio for an employer. BMEssence has a Career Architecture series, and the Essentia Career studio helps with a CV, a portfolio, interview practice and a career plan.
Start 7-day free trialThe Essentia Career studio

Learn

More guides.

Next

Where to go next.