San Jose St. Bonaventure Hospital welcomes Dr. Emilie Airan (pictured below with her daughter, Hannah Grace, and their dogs, Sadie and Buddy) to our surgical team. Dr. Airan is an Indian-American, originally from Kavali, Andhra Pradesh, India and has been in the United States since the age of eighteen. She was previously employed at College Station Medical Center, in College Station, Texas, after graduating with her medical doctorate from Baylor University in Waco. She completed her BSN (or bachelors of Science in nursing) from Louisiana State University in 2011, her Master's in Surgical Theory from Texas A&M University in 2015 and her medical doctorate from Baylor in May 2018.

Dr. Airan is mixed-race, with a Chinese mother and an Indian father and is the oldest and only female child of six, but has lost two of her brothers and her sister-in-law previously. As such, she is fluent in Chinese, as well as Hindi, Spanish, Italian, French, and English. Her English is heavily accented, as it is her sixth language, so she has to be carefully listened to to be understood and may not understand idioms.

She has been married twice, to American men, and has a young daughter, Hannah Grace, who she absolutely adores. Dr. Airan also is wheelchair-bound, due to having her legs blown off to her hips as a Marine stationed in Yemen in 2002. She suffered these injuries by stepping on an explosive device in the same operation where her best friend was killed.

She is a practicing Hindu, but is open to the possibilities of other religions. She enjoys religious study and owns at least one copy of every religious text in existence. She also enjoys hiking, and road trips with her daughter. Dr. Airan was the four-time winner of College Station Medical Center's "Most Compassionate Young Surgeon" award and is specializing in pediatric surgery—in memory of her young son, who died at three years old due to a surgical mistake.

Medical malpractice, Dr. Shaun Murphy immediately thought as he read the short missive. He was interested in meeting this Dr. Airan, though. He had never found himself to be a fan of gossip and rumor mills, having borne the brunt of many of them throughout his life and career, but he had found himself listening as the nurses had talked about her.

"I heard that Dr. Airan's brilliant. Got a lot of book smarts, but a lot of common sense too. She has to have a lot of book smarts to get through Baylor at the top of her class."

"I agree. She surely has to. But I also heard she's got beauty too. She's a stunningly beautiful woman, if the picture on our email is anything to go by."

Shaun agreed wholeheartedly with that assessment as he looked at her picture. She was indeed stunning. He could see some facets of both her heritages in her—her dark eyes were a little more slanted due to her Chinese heritage and her skin was naturally tanned, instead of pale, showing her Indian ancestry.

Her daughter—Hannah Grace—was much the same—if two to three shades lighter—and he found himself laughing at the expression of her face in the picture. It was a cross between her This smells disgusting face and her surprised face. Her mother wore an easy smile that showed her brilliantly white teeth as she leaned back against her daughter.

Even the dogs—Sadie and Buddy—looked happy in the picture. Sadie was a little white poodle, while Buddy was a chocolate lab. They were both crowded into their human mother's lap, Sadie curled up underneath her right arm, while Buddy was laying down at her side. He smiled, before shutting his laptop and neatly putting it away. Shaun fell to sleep that night with Dr. Emilie Airan on his mind.

The next day was Monday. Monday, for Shaun, meant breakfast with Dr. Aaron Glassman, who had been his mentor and father figure since he was fourteen. Monday also meant chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. He was able to get to St. Bonaventure on time, and with all the appropriate clothing on in the correct order.

The hospital cafeteria was packed at this time of the morning, everyone getting their breakfast and beverages—some opted for orange juice, others for milk, and he noticed a tiny figure in a wheelchair at the coffee machine with a coffee cup in hand, but this person was too small to reach the machine.

Thin hands stretched up over their head as they tried to reach it. Shaun was able to see their back—this was clearly a woman, with long, thick curly hair that was jet black and pulled back into a high enough bun that it just looked like it would give her a headache. She was dressed well, unlike most of the nurses and surgical doctors, making her stick out like a sore thumb.

She wore a khaki pleated skirt, and a sleeveless white top. Shaun noticed that she seemed to not have legs attached to her body, but also noticed that the skirt hid her injuries. He felt bad for her—he didn't know why—so he actually left his place in line to go help her.

The young woman turned and he saw the same face he had seen in the picture. The words came out before he could stop them. "Dr. Airan?"

She didn't speak in response, but looked up and smiled at him.

He gently took her cup. "Do you need help?"

She looked down, in shame, but nodded.

"It's okay to need help. Do you want me to help you get your coffee?"

She nodded again.

Shaun took her cup, quickly pressed the buttons that she pointed to, and then stood there as her coffee brewed. She—Emilie, he now remembered, but thought that it was inappropriate to call her by her first name when she couldn't tell him if that was okay with her—gently smiled up at him.

"I am Dr. Shaun Murphy." He introduced himself and Dr. Airan offered him her hand. He shook it and read her lips as she mouthed thank you. He nodded. "It is my pleasure to help. What are you having for breakfast today? Have you decided?"

She nodded, pointing to the omelette section of the menu.

"Which omelette? Maybe I can help you order."

She pointed to the vegetable omelette—it was an omelet with spinach, red bell peppers, onions, and mushrooms—and he raised his eyebrows. "Like vegetables much, do you?"

Dr. Airan grinned, and nudged him, as if to say, nah.

Shaun smiled back, and then got to ordering for them. Lisa—the cafeteria lady who always made his pancakes—handed them over for him to inspect them. "Monday, right?"

"Yes, it is Monday." He took them. "But I am helping a friend right now, so can you hold onto those for just a second?"

"Sure." Lisa looked a little confused—he had never told her that before, but set them aside on a table. Shaun then went up to stand next to Dr. Airan as she tried to sign her order to a person who didn't understand her language. He ordered, on Emilie's behalf, in his usual, blunt way. "She would like a vegetable omelette."

"Fair enough."

Shaun smiled, turning to Emilie calmly. "Have you got it from here?"

She nodded. Thank you.

He then got his chocolate chip pancakes and his milk, going outside to sit at his and Dr. Glassman's usual table. Emilie came out a minute later, holding her full plate in one hand and her coffee in the other. She passed right by them, her eyes—the exact shade of a mocha— lighter now from the sunlight, all the different shades of hazel, gold and even some shades of green visible in them.

She wore a slight smile—a beautiful slight smile, Shaun thought to himself—but looked as though she was deep in thought about something. He hated coffee, but knew that he loved her from the first moment those mocha-colored eyes met his own. There was no confusion at all.

Her eyes were like her soul—sometimes dark, sometimes light—with a kaleidoscope of everything—her past, her present and her future—within them. He tore his eyes away from hers, but the image remained in his head.

He watched her as she rolled herself over to a handicapped reserved table—by herself—and took out a set of beads. These were silver, and the entire thing was small enough to fit into the palm of her hand. She held these in her right hand, draped them over her middle finger, closed her eyes and began to whisper the chants to herself.

Of course, he couldn't hear her, but could tell by the movement of her lips that, whatever it was, it was the same thing over and over. Oh, yes, she is a Hindu. It must be some kind of prayer.

It seemed more and more like a ritual, he thought, as she recited the same prayer no less than 108 times before opening her eyes, putting her prayer beads away, and beginning to eat her breakfast as if reciting a single prayer 108 times was the most normal thing. Dr. Glassman came to sit across from the young man that he had mentored since the age of fourteen. He noticed where Shaun was looking.

"That's the newest member of the surgical team. Her name is Dr. Emilie Airan. Have you met her?"

"I have. I helped her order her breakfast this morning. She is very sweet."

"She is, yes. Wonder how she ended up here, though? She's originally from Texas."

"No. She's originally from India, but she lived in Texas."

"She's former military, you know. She served as a Marine, until she suffered an injury related to a bomb and had to retire. She became a doctor because of the doctors who treated her. She faced a lot of prejudice for that decision, though, and you probably noticed that she doesn't speak. She can speak, she has the mechanics, but post-traumatic stress disorder keeps her from doing it, because of the fifteen years' worth of horrors she witnessed in Yemen and other places."

"So her reason for not speaking is psychological?"

"Yes. It is. She never said one word, but communicated with us through a voice generating app. She proved herself worthy of a place here. She's still in therapy for PTSD, ten years after her diagnosis. She said that it helps her deal with her civilian life. Her dog, Buddy, is a retired bomb sniffing dog that served with her in Yemen. She was his handler and he led the searchers to her after she was injured. It was about the most fateful story I've ever heard and Dr. Airan even said herself that God had a hand in that. She loves that dog more than most people."

Shaun smiled. "That was a nice story."

Glassman raised an eyebrow, and Shaun could feel his face heat up. "I mean, the last part, with Buddy." He quickly defended himself, and Glassman smiled.

"Yes. She has worked hard and faced so many people that told her that she could never be a doctor, that her dream was impossible. She gave them the metaphorical middle finger and proved them all wrong the day she was hired."

"What about her family?"

"Her mother was murdered in 1986—she was seven. Her father's still alive, but is in his seventies now. She said that he was wealthy, but never has given her so much as a dollar since she came to America."

"Wow. What an…" Shaun motioned violently to get his point across.

"Exactly. She's extremely sweet for what she's been through."

"Yes, she is." Shaun was watching Emilie eat, from the corner of his eye. She ate off her plate, just like anyone else, but put it in her lap, so that she could reach it better. He made a mental note to look at getting her a little table to fit in her lap, against the armrests of her chair, and noticed that she didn't drink her coffee until after she ate her food (probably didn't want to spill it everywhere) and he made another note to look at getting her a cupholder for her chair. She liked coffee, it seemed, because those mocha colored eyes perked up after the first drink.

"She likes coffee." He accidently said out loud.

"Well, most of us do. As doctors, we have to practically live on caffeine and, so, we're judgy people about it. Dr. Airan is not much different."

"She likes omelettes. I do not like eggs."

"I know you don't, Shaun. But she does."

"I love her."