Holmes's first meeting with Stanford professor Dr. Phyllis Gardner (Laurie Metcalf) at the recommendation of Channing Robertson (Bill Irwin) in "The Dropout" did actually happen in real life, and it went just as badly. Gardner flat-out told Holmes her idea for an arm patch that would dispense medicine through the skin was medically impossible.
While the show does a good job of portraying Gardner's unimpressed reaction to Holmes's med-tech ideas and frustration with her hubris, there's no reason to believe the scene where Holmes chases Gardner out to her car after being shut down happened in real life. "She just stared through me," Gardner told the BBC in a January 2022 interview. "And she just seemed absolutely confident of her own brilliance. She wasn't interested in my expertise and it was upsetting."