“Come on, what are you waiting for?” Pia barked when she popped out of her tiny bathroom still applying a pale lipstick that was more for lip protection than color. She grabbed her medical student white coat, pulled it on, and draped her medical center ID around her neck. She held open the door behind her as if she were the one waiting.

Emotionally flummoxed, as per usual, George awakened from what could have been considered a petit mal seizure and followed her out through the door. He had to practically run to catch up to her as she hurried down the hall toward the elevators.

Pia continued to walk quickly as they made their way out of the dorm and turned right toward the medical center complex. Columbia University Medical Center lies in Washington Heights on Broadway as it runs north along upper Manhattan’s spine. Even at this time of the morning, the place was busy. The more purposeful people in the varying-length white coats making their way along 168th Street were the doctors, students, and staff of the hospitals and research facilities. The patients and their relatives who were arriving were more hesitant, trying to figure out where they needed to be and clearly apprehensive of why they were there and what the day might bring.

George turned up the collar of his jacket against the sharp wind that came off the Hudson River and was funneled into 168th Street by the curve of Haven Avenue. Tomorrow, it would be March, the month in which any day the temperature might be in the sixties or it could snow. At that moment it wasn’t particularly cold, but the wind was a reminder that winter still had some kick.

George and Pia were heading for different buildings to start their fourth-year month of elective. Fourth year of medical school was a series of monthlong rotations in various specialties, which included an elective period where the individual students could choose something of their particular interest. That month Pia was to do research, as she’d done during her month of elective in her third year. George was to work in radiology, as he too had done the previous year. These choices were particularly apropos since three weeks earlier, George, Pia, and the rest of the class of 2011 had learned the results of the residency matching program. Both Pia and George had been awarded positions there at Columbia University Medical Center, thanks to their superb academic records and strong faculty recommendations: Pia in internal medicine and George in radiology. By special dispensation, Pia would also be starting a concurrent Ph.D. program in molecular genetics, which would allow her to continue her lab work while fulfilling her requirements as a medical resident.