The Department of Bioengineering accepts to its graduate program students with bachelor's degrees or the equivalent in engineering, life sciences, or physical sciences. Individual graduate programs are planned to prepare each student for a career in the application of science and engineering to problems in medicine and biology. Faculty have joint appointments in other departments in the College of Engineering and in the School of Medicine and College of Pharmacy. Career opportunities exist in clinical engineering (hospitals), biomedical engineering (industry and government), and research and teaching (universities, research groups). A student becomes a Ph.D. candidate after passing the written comprehensive exam and successfully completing both parts of the research proposal (written & oral). The Ph.D. candidate must successfully defend his/her dissertation in a public forum in accordance with the rules of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, the College of Engineering and the Graduate School. The location, date, and time of the defense must be announced at least 10 days in advance. The oral presentation is followed by general questions from the audience. If relevant, the external review of the dissertation is presented near the end of the public session. The review should be delivered by the external reviewer. In some cases an oral reading by the thesis advisor will suffice if the external reviewer is unable to attend the defense. Following the public defense the research supervisory committee further examine the candidate in a closed session (the external reviewer can be included in the closed session by committee invitation). To successfully defend the dissertation the candidate must effectively apply the scientific method, demonstrate the significance of his/her contributions to the field, and professionally communicate the results in both written and oral form. Following the defense, the supervisory committee and the external reviewer (if any) meet in private to discuss the candidate's work and defense. The vote to pass the candidate is taken by the committee alone, the external reviewer does not have a vote. The committee can pass the candidate, pass the candidate contingent upon the candidate's successfully responding to issues raised at the defense, or fail the candidate. Ph.D. candidates are given two opportunities to pass the defense. Changes and improvements to the dissertation, recommended or required by the reviewer and/or the committee members, are incorporated into the document prior to obtaining final reading approval from the committee chair and the department chair for submission to the thesis editor.