No cranail research before recess, 12 year old med. student

== STORY PICK O' THE MORNING ==
Plucked semi-fresh from the wires for your edification
by Mark Morford, San Francisco Chronicle

== No Major Cranail Research Before Recess ==
Just another of those shy ultra-brilliant prodigy kids who make you
wonder what the hell is up with human development and the gene pool.
(Associated Press)
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/a/2003/08/24/national1215EDT0441.DTL&nl=fix

CHICAGO (AP) -- Sho Yano's mother hands him his lunch for school in a
brown paper bag -- a turkey sandwich and cookies included.

"You don't need any bones today? No bones?" Kyung Yano asks her quiet,
spectacle-wearing 12-year-old, who shakes his head "no" as they head
out their apartment door. She wants to make sure he isn't supposed to
take his samples of spinal bones and a human skull to class, where he's
learning about human anatomy.

It's the kind of morning many young students and their parents
experience -- except for one thing. Sho isn't in junior high. He's a
first-year medical school student at the University of Chicago, where
he's the youngest ever to attend one of the university's professional
schools.

If he weren't also getting his Ph.D. along with his medical degree --
thus, pushing his age at graduation to 19 or 20 -- he'd also be on
course to become the youngest person to graduate from any medical
school. According to Guinness World Records, a 17-year-old graduated
from medical school in New York in 1995.

But Sho is utterly uninterested in setting records. He also shuns the
labels often used to describe him -- "prodigy" and "little genius"
among them.

Yes, he has an IQ over 200. And yes, he graduated in three years from
Chicago's Loyola University, summa cum laude. But for him, going to
school is about learning as much as he can.

"And there's a lot of stuff to know," he says, as he thumbs through one
of his extra-thick medical books.

While many kids his age have been spending their summers at camp or the
beach, Sho has been dissecting a human cadaver and learning the
intricacies of the 12 cranial nerves. And so far, having scored A's on
his first few quizzes, he's handling the course work better than some
who are a decade or more older than him.

Some of his classmates were wary at first. That included Luka
Pocivavsek, a 22-year-old medical student who shared a room with his
young classmate at a retreat for new students in the M.D./Ph.D.
program.

At first, he thought Sho -- who often pauses to ponder questions before
answering and chooses his words carefully -- was very quiet. He
wondered how such a young student could handle the emotional and social
rigors of being a doctor.

But Sho quickly won him over.

"He has surpassed my expectations in every imaginable way," Pocivavsek
says. "His initial shyness has given way to a very sociable guy. And
his understanding of complex social and political issues is very keen
and observant."

In some ways, Sho is still a typical 12-year old. He has a pet rabbit
and sometimes squabbles with his little sister, Sayuri. And while he's
not a fan of Harry Potter, he adores books by best-selling children's
author Brian Jacques.

At school, he's more of the little brother figure. His classmates tease
him, for instance, about finding a girlfriend. But they also go out of
their way to include him, often socializing in their homes instead of
bars -- or choosing movies to watch that are rated no higher than PG.

The medical school also has adjusted Sho's schedule a bit, delaying his
clinical work with patients for his last two years in the program.

Still, pathology professor Tony Montag says he sometimes forgets that
Sho is younger than his classmates.

"Of course, to me, they're all kids. So he doesn't seem particularly
different than any of the students," says Montag, who teaches Sho and
other first-year students about microscopic tissues in their histology
class.

Born in Portland, Ore., Sho spent most of his early years in
California, where his father, Katsura, now runs the American subsidiary
of a Japanese shipping company. Sho lives in the university's family
housing with his mother, who originally came to this country from Korea
to study art history, and 7-year-old Sayuri, a talented student in her
own right who wants to be a cardiologist.

From early on, his mom says it was apparent that Sho was gifted.

His mother recalls trying to master a waltz by Chopin on the piano
while 3-year-old Sho played with toy trains below her. Frustrated, she
went to the kitchen to take a break -- and a few moments later, hurried
back in amazement as she heard Sho playing the piece.

By age 4, he was composing. And by age 7, he was doing high school work
-- taught by his parents because they couldn't find a school that could
accommodate him.

By age 8, he scored a 1,500 out of 1,600 possible points on the SAT and
started college at age 9.

The response from the public -- and some of his undergraduate
classmates -- has not always been positive. Recently, Sho did an
Internet search of his name and was surprised to find many people
commenting about his life in blogs (or Web logs).

"One person said, 'Look at this miserable child with a pushy mother,"'
Sho says. "Another said, 'Look at this miracle of God with his
supportive parents."'

Sho smiles at the notion that his parents have pushed him. "Sometimes,
I kind of pull them along," he says.

His mom Kyung says it's difficult to explain what having a child like
Sho has been like. But she and her husband were always clear: "He will
decide his own life, what he wants to do," she says.

They let him choose the University of Chicago even though it meant
Sho's father would have to live apart from them because of his job.

His mom also lets him decide which media interviews he accepts. A few
months back, he turned down a request from talk show host Oprah
Winfrey. He told his mom he wants he do something "bigger" before being
on TV -- like becoming a researcher and professor.

In the end, he says he chose medicine because he wants to help people.

"I wish I could find a big step," he says, his eyes widening slightly,
"like a treatment for cancer."