MEng Project (Internship)

Professor Karen Cheung, BME MEng Graduate Student Advisor, kcheung+bmegrad@ece.ubc.ca

This is a six-credit course for all BMEG MEng students who have chosen the internship option. Regular BMEG graduate students may also take this course as a technical elective. However, prior approval from the student’s research supervisor and the Director of the Biomedical Engineering Program is required. The course is usually taken from May to August of each year. Exceptions may be allowed subject to prior approval by the course instructor.

The internship should be a minimum of 16 weeks of full time work.

The course can be completed in one of the following three formats: Hospital Internship, Industry Internship or Supervised Research Project.

1) Hospital internship

The Biomedical Engineering Departments of the hospitals in the Greater Vancouver area and Vancouver Island district from time to time have internship positions available for students in our program. Some of the positions are salaried, but non-salaried positions are also often possible to arrange if there is an insufficient number of salaried positions to meet the interest from students. The program director will assist students by soliciting as many salaried positions as possible but can offer no guarantee that a salaried position will be available to any particular student – such positions represent job offers and the employer has the right to determine if they wish to hire a particular person. When internship positions are available, the information needed to apply will be sent to all MEng students. The selection and hiring of the candidates are conducted by the hospital staff from the Biomedical Engineering Department. The requirement for completion is that the student must be supervised by a clinical engineer in the hospital, carry out clinically-oriented project work, submit a technical report summarizing the major work done by the student, and present the work to the Biomedical Engineering staff in the hospital with the presence of an academic supervisor (see Supervisor Selection below). A site visit by the academic supervisor is encouraged during the internship.

2) Industry internship

This is similar to the hospital internship except that the sponsoring organization has to be a registered corporation doing research and/or development work in biomedical engineering. The student does not need to be supervised by a professional engineer (note this may have implications on their Professional Engineer application). The student must also directly involve in research and/or development of biomedical engineering products. Sales or marketing in biomedical engineering is not acceptable. Because this type of internship is similar to a summer work term, the Program Director can provide only limited assistance in identifying appropriate positions for students – students interested in this option should plan to seek out appropriate placements themselves. The conditions of engagement, whether salaried or non-salaried, are to be arranged directly between the sponsoring organization and the student, subject to final approval by the academic supervisor (see Supervisor Selection below). The requirement for completion includes a technical report summarizing the major work done by the student, and a presentation of the work to the Biomedical Engineering staff in the sponsoring organization. A site visit by the academic supervisor is encouraged during the internship (if the sponsor requires the academic supervisor to sign a non-disclosure agreement, please advise both the academic advisor and course coordinator in advance).

3) Supervised research project

The student is required to solicit a prospective supervisor who is willing to provide supervision of the research project which can be completed over a four-month period. We encourage students to reach out directly to potential supervisors with whom they would like to work, although we also invite faculty members in the spring (typically February) to post any opportunities they might have available. If the faculty member does not meet the requirements for the academic supervisor (please see below), they may serve as site supervisor and an appropriate academic supervisor must be identified. The research topic must be related to biomedical engineering research. An oral presentation arranged by the supervisor is required. A technical report submitted by the student will be marked by the supervisor. Note that research project opportunities may or may not offer a stipend – this is at the discretion of the proposed supervisor and will depend on resources available at the time.

In addition to the project supervisor at the placement site (for off-site positions), the student is required to solicit an academic supervisor. The supervisor must be either a joint, regular, or associate member of the Biomedical Engineering Program (list of approved supervisors). Academic supervisors must hold a PhD. The responsibilities of the academic supervisor are to:

• Approve the proposed placement (i.e., certify that the proposed project has sufficient technical and professional content); this approval may be granted either in writing or by the academic supervisor forwarding an electronic copy of the proposal memo (see below) to the program assistant (students@sbme.ubc.ca); this should be done as early as possible – preferably in advance of the placement

• If possible, visit the student during the placement to discuss progress

• Be available to the student throughout the placement for technical advice

• Attend and mark the student’s final oral presentation

• Receive and mark the student’s technical report, poster, and technical brief

It is the responsibility of the student to solicit an appropriate supervisor prior to beginning the work term (ideally as early as possible) and notify the program assistant by email of this selection to confirm that the academic supervisor is acceptable.

As the fulfillment of this course depends on what type of arrangement is made, the evaluation criteria are subject to discussion between the student’s on-site supervisor and their academic supervisor. In general, a proposal memo describing the learning objectives and project work should be submitted to the academic supervisor for approval before the first week of engagement. A site visit will, if possible, be conducted by the academic supervisor to discuss the student’s work, progress, and performance. A completion memo signed by the site supervisor certifying that the report describes work done by the student must accompany the project report to be submitted to the academic supervisor. The proposal and completion memo will be available for students on Canvas. The site supervisor may recommend a grade for the student. However, the final mark will be assigned by the academic supervisor and sent to students@sbme.ubc.ca in the completion memo.

Near the end of the placement, students are required to submit a series of course deliverables which are listed below. Course grading will be done primarily by the academic supervisor. Nominally, weighting will be as follows (subject to adjustment to suit particular circumstances):

• Technical Report – 70%

• Oral Presentation – 15%

• Poster – 10%

• Technical Brief – 5%

• Web Summary – required, but not marked

Technical Report: The contents of the technical report should be negotiated between the site supervisor, student and academic supervisor. There is no formal length or formatting requirements for this report. The report should be a meaningful document, in the sense that the site supervisor wishes this report to be written. From an academic point of view, the report should describe one or more of the key engineering tasks the student undertook during their placement.

A typical report would consist of at least four main sections: an introduction describing the motivation and background for the problem, in method section describing what was done, a results section describing what was found, and a discussion, conclusions and recommendations section. There should be appropriate references to the literature, as necessary.

Students should submit their report to their site supervisor and academic supervisor at or shortly after the end of their placement. The precise deadline may be negotiated with the two supervisors.

Oral Presentation: The primary purpose of preparing a poster is to gain experience in this mode of professional communication. In addition, it allows you to share your work with your fellow biomedical engineering students.

Students are responsible for coordinating a presentation date with their academic supervisor near the end of their internship. Several other external opportunities for making such a presentation are available each year. Students should discuss with the course coordinator (Dr. Karen Cheung) and their academic supervisor which presentation opportunity(ies) is(are) most suitable for them:

• September: Welcome event for new BME students – this helps incoming students understand the types of work students in the MEng program do for their graduating project

• September (possibly late August): The Annual Clinical Engineering Technical Meeting – students are invited to present their work to clinical engineers from around BC

• Conferences – if your poster is suitable for presentation at a conference, you are welcome to propose such avenue.

If your project supervisor is concerned about confidentiality issues, please discuss the situation with the course coordinator. You will still be required to create a poster, but it will typically be presented only to people within the sponsoring organization.

Web Summary: Please provide a short (~200 word) description of the project (together with a suitable photo) for use on the BME program web page.

Technical Brief: The technical brief should be about two pages in length and is essentially an executive summary of your technical report.

Please contact the Tuition Fee Payment Office at Brock Hall to request a refund of any remaining portion of the term’s tuition fees. Only full months of tuition can be refunded.

Tuition Fee Payment Office
2016–1874 East Mall
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1
604.822.9836

Rarely students will take a leave of absence during the summer term for a variety of reasons (unable to secure internship, personal reasons, health reasons). If you plan on taking a leave of absence, please use our contact form BEFORE you plan on starting your leave. A leave of absence will normally begin on the first day of September, January, or May and will be granted for a period of four, eight, or twelve months.

Important: Students must request a leave of absence before the date on which the leave will start. Retroactive leaves will only be approved in highly exceptional cases.

Calendar: http://www.calendar.ubc.ca/vancouver/index.cfm?tree=12,204,341,191

Senate policy V302.2: http://senate.ubc.ca/vancouver/policy-abstracts