in the world of medicine , particularly that of neurosurgery , rowan 's compulsive habits are less remarkable , given the nature of the profession yet even in this field , rowan has been seen as 'ob ' sessive ' in fact , rowan seems born to have been a doctor , though her choice of surgery over research surprised many people who knew her 'when she was in the lab , ' said one of her colleagues , 'her mother had to call her and remind her to take time out to sleep or eat ' one of rowan 's early elementary-school teachers noted in the record , when rowan was eight , that'this child thinks she is an adult she identifies with adults she becomes impatient with other children but she is too well behaved to show it she seems terribly , terribly alone ' telepathic powers rowan 's psychic powers began to surface in school from the time she was six years old indeed , they may have surfaced long before that , but we have not been able to find any evidence before that time teachers queried informally ( or deviously ) about rowan tell truly amazing stories about the child 's ability to read minds however , nothing we have discovered indicates that rowan was ever considered an outcast or a failure or maladjusted she was throughout her school years an overachiever and an unqualified success her school pictures reveal her to have been an extremely pretty child , always , with tanned skin and sun-bleached blond hair she appears secretive in these pictures , as if she does not quite like the intrusion of the camera , but never affected , or ill at ease rowan 's telepathic abilities became known to teachers rather than to other students , and they follow a remarkable pattern 'my mother had died , ' said a first-grade teacher 'i could n't go back to vermont for the funeral , and i felt terrible nobody knew about this , you understand but rowan came up to me at recess she sat beside me and she took my hand i almost burst into tears at this tenderness 'i 'm sorry about your mother , ' she said she sat there with me in silence later when i asked her how she knew , she said , 'it just popped into my head ' i think that child knew all kinds of things that way she knew when the other kids were envious of her how lonely she always was ! '