Biomedical engineering is a diverse, multidisciplinary field that uses engineering, science, and technology to solve medical problems and other problems involving living systems. Biomedical engineers design artificial hearts and hips; with engineers in other fields, they develop and maintain the systems that keep astronauts alive during spaceflight; they manage the diagnostic instruments that monitor patients in emergency rooms and during surgery; and they have the option of going directly into medical school. The program in biomedical engineering is designed to prepare students to work in concert with physicians and life scientists to solve a wide variety of medical and biological problems.