There's a lot riding on this week's meeting of university trustees.

Later this week, University of Illinois trustees will cast a vote that either will embrace the future in a way that could affect thousands maybe even millions of people or timidly step back from a glittering challenge.

It's our hope that trustees will approve Chancellor Phyllis Wise's proposal for a new engineering- and technology-oriented medical school. Planned as a partnership with Carle Hospital, the proposed medical school represents a game-changing concept that could put the local campus in the forefront of what will be a burgeoning field fusing medical education with engineering.

There are questions, of course.

After Wise proposed her plan for the local campus, the UI's Chicago medical school proposed a Translational BioEngineering Institute based in Urbana to work with the local engineering program but making it part of the UIC's College of Medicine.

Then there's the matter of finances. Some might think it counterintuitive that a university facing a cut in state appropriations is proposing a new program of this magnitude. How would it be financed?

There are good answers to those issues of place and process.

But, first, there is the vision of a pioneering program in a hugely important field that creates vast possibilities both human and economic for the local campus, the Champaign-Urbana community and beyond.

The future of medicine lies, at least partly, in the creation of new medical devices that are both lifesaving and cost-effective.

No one can predict exactly what the future holds. But compared to today, it will be unrecognizable, thanks to the relentless march of technology.

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Medical school on the agenda