She thought she was dumb for years, and now that she knows she isn't, Kelly Bauer will fight to prove it.

Chalk two victories up to this spunky, rapid-fire talking young Charleston woman.

One: the National Board of Medical Examiners agreed last week to a request she and another learning disabled medical student made for special considerations when they took their boards.

The agreement was reached in the face of a federal lawsuit Bauer and Eric Hall of Huntington filed.

Two: Bauer completed the boards Saturday -- after 25 hours of testing over four days.

"I'm just tired, really tired," she said Monday.

But Bauer had already cleaned up her apartment by Monday afternoon, and her collection of theology and psychology books was prominent in her living room -- heavy-duty stuff for somebody with a reading problem.

"I want to learn," Bauer said.

She also wants to be a doctor, an ambition her mother says Bauer has expressed since she was 7.

That childhood dream took root in Bauer's hometown of Pennsburg, Pa.,outside Allentown. When the other kids were going to the movies, Bauer was hitting the books.

"What took everybody else two hours took me six," she said.

Bauer knew even then that she didn't read like everybody else did, but she had no name for it.

Her grades were average, "not reflective of my efforts," she said.

She went on to Juniata College in Huntington, Pa., but not with confidence.

"I thought I didn't have the intellect to do it," she said. Bauer remembers being afraid what would happen "if somebody finds out how really dumb I am."

It would be years before Bauer's IQ would be tested and she would find out she wasn't dumb after all.

Bauer finished college with a degree in biology, but didn't go straight to medical school.

Her advisers were against it, and she still had her own fears about her ability.

"I knew my chances were nil point squat," she said.

Instead, she became a pharmaceutical sales rep, traveling rural West Virginia.

One day, driving a two-lane road from Huntington to Logan and watching for the coal trucks coming around the bend, it hit her.

"I do not want to drive this road the rest of my life," she realized.

Bauer worked with doctors every day, and she knew she could do their job.

She applied to West Virginia University's medical school, was put on a waiting list. When somebody else dropped out, she got in. That was 1990.

Academics were "awful" before, but the crush of medical studies made it 10 times worse.

"I cried every day first semester," Bauer said.

After two years in medical school, Bauer took the first part of her medical licensing exam, and failed.

After that, she dropped out of medical school for a year. She worked and struggled with depression for six months, then spent six months studying for the exam before taking it again.

This time, she passed.

Bauer then headed from Charleston, where she began her clinical training at Charleston Area Medical Center.

This was to be her turning point.

She was scrubbing for surgery one day and talking to a medical student from Marshall when she mentioned her problems with reading.

"You ought to call Marshall," the student said. "It has a class for medical students with learning disabilities."

Bauer did call, and enrolled in the class, where she was tested. Finally, all her struggle had a name.

"I'm dyslexic! I'm dyslexic! I'm dyslexic!" she gleefully shouted to her physician-supervisor on the phone.

That means Bauer has a biological problem that impairs her reading ability. She also found she has Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder, another type of problem that makes it hard to concentrate.

Study methods and medications to treat her problems were put in place, and suddenly, academic life got easier.

WVU started giving Bauer more time and a room of her own to take tests, and her test scores went up.

Bauer asked for more time and a separate room for her boards last week. The board denied the request, saying she hadn't documented her disabilities well enough.

Last week, about a day before the test was to begin, the board changed its mind.

Bauer won't know if she passed for six weeks, but she is thinking ahead toward a residency that will eventually lead to a specialization in child psychiatry.

She knows the future may be hard -- that reading also is required of doctors, not just medical student.

"It just takes me longer. I'll do things differently. It's something I'm willing to accept.

"If your goal is to be a physician, you'll do what you need to do to achieve that goal," she said.

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