Education does not know any barrier in age, and it is precisely this form of mindset that impelled the 70-year-old Malaysian Toh Hong Keng to pursue a dream, even after retirement. This year, in July 2024, he became the oldest graduate from Southwestern University PHINMA in Cebu, Philippines, after finishing his medical degree to make him one of the oldest graduates in medicine in the world.
When Toh Hong Keng first started to attend classes, lots of students thought that he was a professor and didn’t realize he actually was one of their new medical classmates. “My family and friends were surprised at first. Several of my friends thought I was crazy wanting to study medicine at this age. It wasn’t always easy,” he said in an interview with CNN. When reaching from 65 to 70-year-old, my memory, eyesight and hearing, and my body is not as good as compared to when I was young.
Previously, Toh Hong Keng was a technology salesman, but rather than spend his golden years on the golf course or playing mahjong, he opted to pursue medicine. The road was not entirely smooth-he failed a paediatrics examination in the third year, which meant he had to stay on an extra year. The final year was especially gruelling, with placements in both private and public hospitals, some of them stretching up to 30 hours.
Toh Hong Keng said he often wondered: “Why am I doing this? Maybe I should just give up.” For him, though, family support and encouragement from the younger classmates kept his spirits high. Fairly often, they reminded him of the Filipino word “Sayang,” referring to it as a waste not to be able to finish. His classmates told him, “Sir Toh, if you give up now, it will be sayang.
As a surprise, Toh Hong Keng never imagined being a doctor when he was young. It wasn’t until his trip to Kyrgyzstan in 2018 that, having met two Indian medical students, the idea came into his head. Afterwards, he started preparing for entrance exams after his retirement and applied to many Asian universities-most with an upper age limit. But finally, an admission came, to Southwestern University in Cebu, after he contacted his family’s former domestic helper, whose daughter had just graduated from a Philippine medical school.
The head of the medical school, Dr. Marvi Dulnuan-Niog, characterized Toh Hong Keng as determined, saying, “He had a very strong resolve and never asked for any special treatment throughout the five-year program.