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In our continuous efforts to encourage sharing of 
knowledge and publication of engineering and scientific 
work related to the clinical engineering field, we were 
invited to review this newly published book. We hope 
that you will find it helpful to your career and at the 
same time promote the submission of other books for 
review by our community experts who serve the benefit 
of all our readers.  

Biomedical Device Technology Principles and Design, 
(3rd Edition), by Anthony Y.K. Chan, ISBN 978-0-398-09392-1 
(hard copy), ISBN 978-0-398-09393-8 (ebook), Charles C 
Thomas, Publisher, LTD., Published February 2023. Price 
$79.95US. Biomedical Device Technology: Principles and 
Design: 9780398093921: Medicine & Health Science Books 
@ Amazon.com (last visited on April 26, 2023).

This book review is a combined summary of three 
practitioners from the Clinical Engineering global com-
munity. An academician, a national health technology and 
quality manager, and an international consultant. For 
this purpose, Charles C Thomas Publisher, LTD., provided 
copies of the books to the reviewers. The author - Dr. 
Anthony Chan is a well-qualified Professional Engineer, 
a Chartered Engineer, and a Certified Clinical Engineer. 
He holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering and a Certif-
icate in Health Services Management. During his career, 
he has presented and published in both domestic and 
international congresses, on safety, risk management  
and technology management. In the Preface section of 
the book, the author writes that “This book focuses on 
applications, functions and principles of medical devices…
and uses specific designs and constructions to illustrate 
the concepts where appropriate.”

The primary function of this book is to describe 
the basic working principles of medical devices used 
for diagnostic and therapeutic in the healthcare area, 
though imaging equipment is not included. For a better 
understanding of the equipment working principles, 
the author presents a brief but sufficient description 
of the physiologic parameters and transducers used 
for the measurements of these parameters for each of 
the devices described in the book. Some mathematical 
concepts are introduced to help the understanding of the 
capturing and processing system used by these devices.  

In addition to the Preface, the book is organized into 
four parts consisting of 38 chapters, four appendices, an 
interesting set of review questions, and an index for a 

Book Review
By Thomas Judd1, Saide Calil2 and Yadin David3

1 IFMBE CED Past Chairman and GCEA’s Liaison Director
2 GCEA’s Professional Development and Educational Program Committee Chairman
3  GCEA’s Interim President

Biomedical Device Technology Principles and Design, 
(3rd Edition)

Anthony Y.K. Chan

ISBN: 978-0-398-09392-1 (hard copy) 

ISBN 978-0-398-09393-8 (ebook)

Academic Press: Charles C Thomas, Publisher, LTD

First edition: Published February 2023

Book price: US$ 79.95

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J Global Clinical Engineering Vol.5 Issue 3, 2023  10

total of 901 pages.  Part I – Presents a miscellaneous set 
of basic concepts about; how to classify medical devices, 
biopotentials, physiological signals, safety, biocompat-
ibility, human factors, and several other subjects. In 
fact, the author’s intention is to lay the foundation and 
prepare the reader for what is going to be presented in 
the following chapters of the book. It also includes an 
introductory explanation of the mathematical concepts 
related to error measurements, signal processing, and 
analysis. Such concepts can help the reader to have a better 
general understanding of the scientific instrumentation 
foundation involved in medical devices.

Part II – Presents a wide variety of transducers used 
by medical devices. It is divided into eight chapters dedi-
cated to explaining several specific types of transducers. 
Each chapter presents a quite didactic explanation of the 
operating principles of: pressure and force transducers; 
temperature transducers; position and motion transducers; 
flow transducers; optical transducers; electrochemical 
transducers; and biopotential electrodes. Each chapter 
provides an educative concept about transducers that 
are not only used in medicine but in a wide range of 
measuring instruments used from maritime exploration 
to kitchen devices.

Part III – Has three chapters that bring the concept of 
building blocks of medical devices and explain the basics 
and most common electronic circuit used to capture and 
process the electrical signals sensed by the transducer 
and the associated instrumentation amplifier. This part 
also discusses issues related to electrical shock hazards, 
including macro and micro shocks, grounded and isolated 
power systems, and methods to reduce electrical hazards.

Part IV – Presents a total of 24 medical devices, 
generally explaining their applications, basic building 
blocks, different applications for the device, and common 

problems and hazards. It is not an extensive but sufficient 
description for the reader to understand the device well. 
An added feature is that in addition, each device has a 
specific description of issues that helps the reader to 
better understand its working principles. This section 
also presents a dedicated set of bibliographic references 
for each piece of equipment. Like previous sections of 
the book, most of the references noted material up to 
2016 from when the 2nd edition was published. As the 
author writes in the Preface “…medical devices have a 
life span of about 5 to 7 years.” which suggests that more 
recent references will add to the readers’ knowledge. 

The book also contains four appendices where the 
first presents a primer on Fourier analysis, the second 
an overview of Telemetry development, the third is 
about medical gas supply systems, and the fourth offers 
an explanation of the concepts of surgical asepsis and 
device infection control.

Complementing the book, the author elaborated with 
a list of review questions, one set for each of the chap-
ters previously presented. In general, it is a very useful 
foundation of design and principles of devices that are 
used within and outside the healthcare environment 
and is useful for the training of clinical and biomedical 
engineers. Some important technological areas, such 
as digital health or mechanical ventilation are omitted. 
COVID-19 pandemic instrumentation like CPAP and 
oxygen concentrators are limited or missing. 

We like the structure of the book content and note 
that the book delivers fair depth and scope well-suited 
for academic programs. However, the book could be 
strengthened by offering more recent references than 
those already included in the 2nd Edition, and more 
recent applications of pandemic-related devices.

Copyright © 2021. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY): Creative Commons - 
Attribution 4.0 International - CC BY 4.0. The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright 
owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction 
is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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