Dichotomy of Tenure and Biomedical Engineering Research with a Purpose in an Academic Setting

I am one of the many biomedical engineering researchers whose work is built on strong interactions with physicians and basic scientists who find value in the way we approach healthcare problems from alternate perspectives. For example, I collaborated with multiple lung critical care physicians in the past 5 years, one of whom was a pediatric critical care physician at a children's hospital in Memphis, TN, USA. We met regularly in lung physiology research meetings organized by our mentor to discuss problems relating to pediatric lung health, and we carried out research activities to understand the role of mechanobiology of potassium channels in the context of mechanical ventilation (1, 2). In addition to these types of research collaborations, biomedical engineers in academia contribute to the healthcare of pediatric patients also via design initiatives. Just yesterday, I listened to a set of senior design projects that displayed prototypes of at-home mechanical ventilator systems for young children aimed to increase their mobility. These projects were based on collaborations established between the therapists, clinicians, and professors at multiple institutions As such, most would agree with me in saying that these collaborations are important and necessary to develop and optimize healthcare solutions. We, on the biomedical research side, are aware of and sensitive to the issues clinicians are facing with regards to work–life balance and dropout. Here, I want to present that there are similar concerns in academic biomedical research as well. They stem from similar stressors relating in great part to the early career hiring practices. Particularly, academic research in biomedical engineering is highly demanding and competitive in large part due to a pressure cooker entry period: tenure. Any conversation regarding work–life balance in academia must include the long lasting scars these junior years leave in our lives and careers, whether we succeed or fail. In the years of the " probationary " period toward tenure, an assistant professor is asked to teach, research, publish, and raise funds. Depending on the university, these may carry different weights, but in this newer academic climate, where the support for higher education is declining, fundraising is a top priority. In order to secure funding, we write grant applications with research ideas that sound non-risky to reviewers that are curbed versions of our original ideas (3). In order to become fundable, we publish as many papers as quickly as we can. All of these add up to countless …