Worlds Enough and Time

headcanon/thoughts on why you think Shaw became a doctor for thismeansnothingtome​

Apologies for this being late, I got turned around with the dates and I'm playing catch up now.

I think, the whole reason why Shaw became a doctor begins in 1993 at the time when as lookninjas pointed out, she was stuck for hours with her (dead) father under the car. I've always thought that while young Sameen might not have shown she was affected by her father's death, I feel like its an event that marked her.

It's all tied up with what happened to her father, and presumably and this is pure conjecture at this point, whatever happened to her mother, who might or might not have died in an accident. I think Shaw's rotating into the ER has more to do than just being the hospital's battleground, I think maybe her mother died because someone in the ER didn't do enough.

So, if they failed or maybe succeeded in helping her mother maybe Shaw set that goal for herself. To be the person who saves people, just as they're coming into the hospital needing help. 

There are very few people Shaw cared for and the very few that Shaw did care for included her parents. It showed in the fond way she talked about them with Fusco in Allegiance.

Shaw might not have the social skills to be a doctor but I don't think Shaw's chief resident was right in his assessment that Shaw was in it for technical brilliance because the next job Shaw took? Its the opposite end of becoming a doctor and yet it also shares the same endgame: Her job in the Activity helped save and protect people. Its gruesome work, but its work that goes towards her goal.

Harold said Shaw's former job entailed 'saving the world' (okay his tone was disparaging but that was basically Shaw's job, she did save the world, she stopped terrorists).

Also, the only way Root got Shaw to work with her in Mors Praematura was by saying that it would save a lot of people's lives. Root's ploy to use Shaw's father only served to get Shaw angry but when Root played the 'we're going to save people's lives' card Shaw eased up on Root.

(Interesting note: Root already knew  Shaw has a thing about fathers. Don't mess with Shaw about parents because the next thing you know, she's already gutted you.)

Circling back to being a doctor, her Chief Resident claimed that there's a difference between fixing and healing, and supposedly Shaw just fixed things and didn't help heal patients.

Its a criticism that Shaw took really hard.

Because if she can't heal, she's not a real doctor. And, I think, after all the talk that's the thing Shaw took from the whole thing. Its why since then she doesn't claim she's a doctor.

If she can't heal, then maybe she's good with other things.

And that other thing turned out to be killing.

If she has to kill to save people, to protect people then that's what she'll do. After all, sometimes doctors have to cut off a foot to save the patient.