OCTOBER 5 — I recently returned to Penang to deliver a keynote address at the International Symposium of Medical Engineering Research (ISoMER), organised by Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP).

Like many academic conferences, I expected stimulating discussions, new research ideas and the opportunity to meet colleagues from different institutions.

What I did not expect was one of the most meaningful reunions of my academic life.

Waiting to greet me were seven former students from Universiti Malaya’s pioneering Biomedical Engineering undergraduate programme.

Today, they are all serving at UniMAP in various academic capacities. They approached me warmly with smiles, handshakes and stories that immediately brought back memories of another time.

I must confess that I struggled to recognise several of them at first. That was hardly surprising. More than 20 years has passed since they last sat in my classroom.

They belonged to the early years of what was then Malaysia’s first undergraduate biomedical engineering programme.

Establishing that programme had been both exciting and demanding. Biomedical engineering was still a relatively unfamiliar discipline in the country, and we were building almost everything from the ground up: developing the curriculum, establishing laboratories, acquiring equipment and assembling a team of lecturers to teach a field that brought together engineering, medicine and healthcare.

At the time, our attention was naturally focused on helping students complete their studies successfully. We rarely stopped to imagine where their journeys might eventually lead.

Standing among them again after more than two decades, I realised that every one of them had written a different story.

Some entered industry immediately after graduation. Others pursued postgraduate studies, earned doctoral degrees and embarked on academic careers.

Several chose research, while others found their place in regulatory agencies, business or entrepreneurship.

Along the way they built families, raised children and created lives very different from the ones they had imagined as undergraduates.

Yet what struck me most was not the variety of careers they had chosen. It was the responsibility they had accepted.

Several were now doing work that once belonged to their own lecturers. They were teaching undergraduates, supervising postgraduate students, establishing laboratories, writing research proposals and helping to build a relatively young university.

Looking at them, I was reminded that universities are sustained not simply by buildings or equipment, but by each generation accepting responsibility for those who come after them.

One former student looked at me mischievously and said, “Prof Ng, you were so strict. You never smiled. But now you smile much more.”

We all laughed. I suspect there was more than a little truth in his observation. Age has a way of softening us.

The conversation soon moved beyond old classroom memories. We spoke about research, students, teaching and the many challenges of academic life.

Listening to them, I realised that we were no longer discussing biomedical engineering from opposite sides of a lecturer’s desk. We were discussing the same profession as fellow educators, each trying, in our own institutions, to prepare the next generation for a future we ourselves cannot fully foresee.

That afternoon left me reflecting on what education truly passes from one generation to the next.

Knowledge is certainly part of it. We teach scientific principles, engineering methods and professional skills. Textbooks are revised, technologies evolve and research continues to expand our understanding.

Yet knowledge alone is never enough. Every profession ultimately depends on something less tangible but no less important: the willingness of one generation to accept responsibility for nurturing the next.

That responsibility cannot be found in lecture notes. It is reflected in the patience to guide a struggling student, the integrity to pursue research honestly, the commitment to build laboratories and academic programmes that will outlast our own careers, and the generosity to share opportunities that once were given to us.

Looking back, I realised that this quiet transfer of responsibility is how every profession renews itself.

The teachers who shaped us eventually entrust their work to us. In time, we do the same for our own students, often without noticing the moment when the responsibility changes hands.

The conference theme was Intelligent Medical Engineering for a Human-Centred Society 5.0.

Understandably, many of our discussions centred on artificial intelligence, robotics and increasingly sophisticated healthcare technologies.

These innovations will undoubtedly shape the future of medicine and engineering.

Yet my most enduring memory from the conference was not a technological breakthrough. It was meeting seven former students who had become educators in their own right.

Their presence reminded me that behind every new technology, every successful university and every advancing discipline are people who quietly accept the responsibility of carrying knowledge forward.

Scientific progress does not move from one generation to the next by itself. It depends on individuals who are willing to teach, to mentor, to build and, eventually, to entrust that same responsibility to those who follow them.

Looking back on that reunion, I realised that this may be what education has always been about.

We often speak of passing on knowledge, but perhaps what we are really passing on is something much deeper: the responsibility to leave our discipline, our students and our institutions a little stronger than we found them.

That, more than any lecture I have ever given, felt like the most rewarding lesson of all.

* Ng Kwan Hoong is an emeritus professor of Biomedical Imaging at the Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya. A 2020 Merdeka Award recipient, he is a medical physicist by training but also enjoys writing, drawing, listening to classical music, and bridging the gap between older and younger generations. He may be reached at ngkh@ummc.edu.my

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.