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Child Prodigy Sho Yano Earns Medical Degree At Age 21

(USA TODAY) A 21-year-old is about to become the youngest student ever awarded a medical doctorate by the University of Chicago.

(USA TODAY) A 21-year-old is about to become the youngest student ever awarded a medical doctorate by the University of Chicago.

Sho Yano, who was reading at age 2, writing at 3 and composing music at 5, will graduate this week from the Pritzker School of Medicine, where he also received a Ph.D. in molecular genetics and cell biology, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Yano began college at age 9 and earned his undergraduate degree from Loyola University at age 12 - summa cum laude, the Tribune reports.

The average age of students entering medical school in the U.S. is 23, and there were schools that refused Yano admittance because of his age. School officials worried that the difficulty of medical school would hurt Yano's ability to have a normal adolescence, the Tribune reports.

"I never understood that," Yano said. "Why would being allowed to challenge yourself be considered more damaging than being totally bored?"

The University of Chicago admitted Yano in 2003.

"I remember interviewing him ... this nice, polite, 11-year-old boy, dressed in a little suit," said Joel Scwab, a professor of pediatrics who was on the admissions committee. "He was never going to be among typical 11-year-olds, where his mother would drive him to Little League. He was going to be a doctor."

Yano hopes his graduation will silence those who questioned his developmental aptitude when he entered medical school, the Tribune reports.

Yano's sister, Sayuri, is his only sibling, also a prodigy and his closest confidante. After receiving a bachelor's degree in biology from Roosevelt University in 2010, the 15-year-old is now at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, pursuing a second bachelor's degree in violin performance, the newspaper reports.

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