When Greg got into med school, he had his life planned out.
He was going to be rude, ace all his exams, and attend exactly zero classes.
Oh, this was going to be fun.
He was fresh out of a pre-med bachelor's degree, the best that he could get into on scholarships and being in the ninety-ninth percentile in everything.
The first four years of college had been heaven. Girls, booze from friends who though they were going to get As on their midterms, fulfilling his life's goal of flipping off every one of his teachers.
And life was good.
He figured that he would read over the surgery, anatomy, diagnosis, general infection, psychophysiology, and autopsy coursework over the first four weeks or so. Maybe the stuff about oncology, too, but maybe not.
Cancer always did the same thing; blew up like a balloon and sucked The Patient's reserves dry.
(The Patient was the name of the thousands of dollars of books that were stacked under his mattress in lieu of a bedframe.)
Yeah. Skip the cancer.
Greg screwed around. Drank some more, only minus the soon-to-be enemies now that he was finally old enough to grow some stubble and flash his I've-graduated-more-times-than-your-entire-family University ID card.
Who cared if he had wound up with that ID card four years earlier than most?
The world was his oyster.
His first midterm – his first look at the inside of the classrooms – was a slap to the face.
He answered questions, wrote essays about ethics and how to question The Patient (as comfy as he was) about symptoms.
A hundred other students sat by him, dreaming of helping The Patient evolve into not only more than expensive furniture but a fully-functioning human being.
The weight of their blind naïveté and helpfulness sank in on his soul, needling at him and demanding compassion and sneering and guilting him into doctoring for all the right reasons, instead.
Greg House nearly stood up and told his teachers about not even recognizing their faces.
He also nearly went into a monastery.
Bull. Shit.
He went home that day to crash on The Patient and, just for effect, piss on the graves by the church down the street.