FULLERTON : 2 Physicians in Training Are 16, 12

If all goes according to plan, Lee-Loung Liou and his younger brother, Lee-Ming, could be doctors in five years.

They are 16 and 12, respectively.

The Fullerton boys are smart--so smart that they skipped high school. In fact, Lee-Ming also skipped junior high school and spent only three days in the sixth grade.

Last year, the brothers took courses at Fullerton College and Cal State Fullerton, then transferred to Cal State Los Angeles, where they enrolled in an early entrance program for gifted children and maintained a straight-A average. The brothers say they want to become physicians when they complete medical school at USC, UCLA, Stanford or wherever they are accepted.

“I decided when I was 5 that I wanted to be a doctor,” Lee-Loung said, leaning over a stack of medical books in his room.

“And I always wanted to be like my brother,” Lee-Ming said.

“We want to do research too. We want to find a cure for diseases like cancer or AIDS,” Lee-Loung said.

Prof. Donald Paulson, the boys’ organic chemistry teacher at Cal State L.A., said he believes they can achieve whatever they set their minds to.

“The two of them had the top two grades in my class. They’re really very, very smart,” he said. “They know how to solve problems.”

Their father, Allen Liou, 55, a computer design consultant, said he started teaching his oldest son multiplication tables at age 7. “Lee-Ming wanted to try, and he picked it up so fast,” the father said. Lee-Ming was 3 at the time. By the time he reached fifth grade, he had already mastered calculus, the father said.

The brothers, who are majoring in biochemistry and are carrying 24 units each, are expected to receive their bachelor’s degrees next summer. They are dropped off and picked up at school by their parents each day.

Their mother, Betty Liou, 43, who has a master’s degree in special education, said that she and her husband taught the boys early that learning was their responsibility. It has been the key to their academic success, she said.

“We didn’t do anything special,” she said. “A lot of people treat a kid like a kid. But they don’t realize that children are very curious. They learn faster than adults because their minds are pure.”

The Liou boys “are exceptionally gifted kids,” said Bill Leonard, their former calculus professor at Cal State Fullerton. “There was nothing I could throw out that they couldn’t do.”

But the boys view their talents with unabashed modesty.

“I don’t think we’re that much different than other kids our ages,” said Lee-Loung, who plays trumpet in a community youth band. “I think studying is a little bit easier for us because we’ve been doing it for so long. It’s automatic.”

“It’s not weird for me,” said Lee-Ming, who, like his brother, was his elementary school’s spelling bee champion, chess champ and academic pentathlon winner.

“We don’t like to tell everyone that we’re in college,” Lee-Loung said. He said he’s a “normal person” and wants to be treated like any other boy.

The brothers spend most of their free time practicing the trumpet, riding bicycles, defeating complex computer games and watching their favorite television shows--”Star Trek, the Next Generation” and “Quantum Leap.”

“I guess I’m sort of unique because my friends are always telling me they wish they could be where I am right now,” Lee-Ming said. “That makes me feel proud of what I’ve accomplished. But, all I did was study regularly.”

“It’s no big deal,” Lee-Loung said.