year off or taking a couple years off? >> no. i knew that would be fatal. it was not a question. >> 'cause you just couldn't survive. >> yeah, i mean, life would be over. it's a little early for life to be over. >> so while nobody had heard of someone with krauthammer's injury standing up to the rigors of a med school curriculum, krauthammer convinced harvard to let him try. amazingly, mere weeks after his accident, he resumed classes while still in his hospital bed. >> i was lying on my back, couldn't move. the professors would come in, repeat their lectures and project slides on the ceiling, 'cause i had asked the medical school to let me stay with my class. >> and you read by laying on your back. >> one of the cardiac residents hooked up a plexiglas plate above my head that he hung from the posters of the bed, and the nurses would put a book on it face down. now, you don't want to call them