Vascular mechanics in the clinic.

The bioengineer has more to contribute to medicine than he/she ever has in the past. The successful contribution must be based on such experiences as described by Donald McDonald in his collaboration with John Womersley. Clinician and engineer must come to know the other's problems, their weaknesses and their strengths. They must be prepared to compromise, but to know where compromise is warranted, and where it is not. The clinician must be prepared to change if he/she is to gain help from the engineer. Blind acceptance of old concepts (of "hypertension", and of cuff sphygmomanometric accuracy, etc.) needs enlightenment, while acceptance of physiological reality such as wave reflection needs emerge. The clinician's vocabulary will need to change. This chapter opens with a discussion of a time where knowledge of engineering, physics, physiology and medicine was meagre. These disciplines were small, but they did interconnect through the work of renaissance (and later) scientists. With increase in knowledge, the disciplines enlarged, and grew apart from each other. The challenge of today is to bring these closer together so that there may be some connection, some overlap, and so that the crevices between the disciplines are not so deep, and not such a deterrent to those who wish to engage in interdisciplinary activity.