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Ellie is a bright and bubbly, yet dedicated new nurse in the Emergency Department at Chicago Medical Institute. Dr. Harry Styles, meticulous, hardworking, and driven, is the head of the department. Ellie's little q...
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"Fine," he said and he sighed deeply before he began. However, it didn't quite sound as if he was reluctant to tell me; relieved possibly.
He started, speaking slowly, hesitantly. "I was, uh, something of a genius when I was a kid." Okay, that was a little surprising, but not scandalous, the way he'd been making it sound. "I mean legitimate genius IQ, doing advanced chemistry in sixth grade, calculus in seventh grade. I don't know how, I just have a brain that understands things really well, I guess." He stopped talking and shook his finger at me. "And before you go making jokes about how my brain isn't so special anymore, I still have a genius IQ. I just don't tell people about it."
I absorbed the information with great interest. I knew he was intelligent and he was good at what he did. But a genius? That was new. "How does that make you someone else now?" I asked.
"Well, I haven't told you the rest yet," he said. He took another deep breath and blurted out, "I never finished high school."
"What?" I asked sharply. "You're losing me."
He continued. "When I was sixteen, I was accepted into a full, eight-year medical program at the University of Chicago. I immediately got a transport tech job here to get used to the medical environment, but I studied on the side to get my license as a Patient Care Tech. So I spent the remaining years of med school working as a PCT."
"Shit," I said, dragging the word out.
"I finished four years of undergrad-level work in two. I started med school at 18."
"Wow." I shook my head as I absorbed the information. "I'm amazed that you could fit that all in! But wait, didn't you say you went to Milwaukee for your residency?"
"Yep, I did. And that part was true. I did two years of residency up there, but I was also hired immediately at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin after I graduated. I practiced there for five years or so. By then, I really wanted to come back to Chicago. I interviewed here, and they already knew me and my credentials, so I got right in. So I guess I lied a little that night at the bar. I said I was a newbie seven years ago, but I wasn't new to medicine, and I wasn't exactly new to the hospital."
I gave him a playful look of disappointment. "I forgive you. But really, this is unbelievable. No wonder your standards are so high."
"I don't expect people to live up to my expectations or my own accomplishments." He looked away, out the window towards the lake. "Not exactly anyway."
"What does that mean?"
"I expect the best from people, whatever their best happens to be."
"What if someone is really, truly trying their best and you think they're not?" I asked, putting him on the spot.
"I can read people pretty well. I know when they need a little push," he said.
"Or some nagging, as you so thoughtfully did for me," I said with a little smirk.
