Joseph F. Dyro has been inducted into the Clinical Engineering Hall of Fame in recognition of his significant contributions to Clinical Engineering. Dr. Dyro’s contributions have had a profound impact on the field of clinical engineering. His research in device evaluations, his model for in-house clinical engineering services, his industry contributions, particularly with the American College of Clinical Engineering (ACCE), and his publication of the Clinical Engineering Handbook, among other works and presentations, have established the standards of clinical engineering. His innovative body of work continues to influence our clinical engineering practices globally.

Dr. Dyro commenced his professional career in 1972 when he joined the Emergency Care Research Institute (ECRI), an organization founded by Dr. Joel Nobel, a first inductee to the Hall of Fame. Dr. Dyro owes much to him for his guidance, example and inspiration. Over the next eight years, he dedicated himself to assisting Dr. Nobel and the ECRI team of engineering professionals in conducting medical device evaluations, incident investigations, and delivering lectures on medical device safety matters both nationally and internationally.  One of his notable achievements while at ECRI was the writing of performance and safety standards for infant incubators and radiant warmers for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Another was his identification of the hazards and risks associated with Infant Apnea Monitors. Evaluations of these devices were published in ECRI’s flagship publication, Health Devices.

In 1980, Dr. Dyro accepted the position of Director of Biomedical Engineering at the newly-built 508-bed New York State University Medical Center at Stony Brook. From the ground up, he established a clinical engineering program, hiring and overseeing a team of 26 clinical engineers, biomedical engineers, electrical engineers, radiation physicists, mechanics, and biomedical engineering technicians. The program provided expert consultation services and conducted pre-acquisition evaluations of medical devices, encompassing equipment planning, testing and maintenance, system integrations, and incident investigations.

In 1985, Dr. Dyro further expanded his professional responsibilities by joining SUNY’s School of Medicine, where he was Associate Professor of Anesthesiology for research and establishment and development of a hospital-wide computerized patient monitoring system.

In 1990, Dr. Dyro collaborated with other clinical engineering leaders, many of whom are Hall of Fame inductees, to establish the American College of Clinical Engineering (ACCE). He held various roles within ACCE over the years, including membership chair, newsletter editor, and two terms as ACCE president. He served as faculty member of many Advanced Clinical Engineering Workshops across the globe.

In 1994, Dr. Dyro established Biomedical Resource Group, where he served as President and primary consultant. His work focused on accident and incident investigations involving a wide range of medical technologies. He served as expert witness in medical device litigation involving accidents and patent disputes. Additionally, he provided consulting services to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the World Health Organization (WHO), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the World Bank, Project Hope, Underwriters Laboratories, and numerous hospitals and manufacturers.

Dr. Dyro authored numerous articles, book chapters, and books and lectured worldwide at universities and professional associations on clinical engineering topics.  His most notable contribution to the field was serving as editor and contributor of the 674-page, 2004 Clinical Engineering Handbook published by Elsevier Academic Press.  This comprehensive handbook featured articles from 170 international experts on a diverse range of clinical engineering subjects. Reviewing the handbook at the time, Prof. Paul King of Vanderbilt University acknowledged, as did many others, its exceptional comprehensiveness, stating that it is “an exceedingly comprehensive handbook. The field of clinical engineering (worldwide) is very well described here. While the level of each individual chapter varies considerably (from one-page summaries to multiple page well-documented and illustrated chapters) this text overall will be very useful as a reference text for practitioners and students of clinical engineering. Many individual chapters will serve as teaching material for lectures in clinical and bioengineering courses. The editor and each author are to be congratulated for their contribution to the literature in this field."

• B.S., Electrical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 1965
• M.S. Biomedical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, 1968. 
• PhD. Biomedical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, PA, 1972
• Certified Clinical Engineer, AAMI/ICC and HTCC (1976) 
• Fellow, American College of Clinical Engineering, 
  
• Fellow, American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, 1993
• Institute of Engineering of Australia Distinguished Speaker of the Year, 2000
  
• American College of Clinical Engineering Tom O’Dea Advocacy Award, 2005 
• AAMI Clinical/Biomedical Engineering Achievement Award, 2005​

"One personal experience of Joe's judgement that I remember well, was the way that he persuaded me in 2004 to put together a paper titled 'The Great Debate on Electrical Safety – in Retrospect' for his monumental 696-page Clinical Engineering Handbook which was published in 2004. The paper describes the one-time encounter in early 1968 between supporters of Dr. Carl Walter who had single handedly advanced as fact the concept of micro-shock which, had it survived, had the potential to bankrupt the entire healthcare industry of the United States – and a group of technically astute core members of the very early clinical engineering community. Joe understood how important it was to document one of the pivotal moments in the evolution of our profession."