No time off for doctor-in-training
NFL: Duvernay-Tardif may become first man in more than 60 years to earn M.D. while playing in league
ATORONTO fter having completed all of his postgraduate clinical medical rotations in the spring, future doctor Laurent Duvernay-Tardif could have just taken it easy this summer.
Just as most of the NFL’s other 2,800-plus men under contract are doing. Namely, nothin’. Other than ostensibly staying in (or working back into) top physical shape for training camp.
Relaxing? Vacationing? And when possible, sleeping in? Those are the usual to-do-list entries for most NFLers between the conclusion of spring practices in mid-June and the start of training camp in late July.
Not for Duvernay-Tardif, a bornand-raised Montrealer who starts at right guard for the Kansas City Chiefs. Not even after he won the NFL’s version of the lottery in March — that is, a huge second contract. His is worth $42.4-million over five years, with $20.2 million of it guaranteed.
Indeed, the 6-foot-5, 320-pounder is so remarkably intelligent and driven (he took only one year of premed at McGill University before diving straight into med school), that his only fear in life is probably to face six consecutive weeks of unstructured nothingness.
So, since the Chiefs’ mandatory spring mini-camp concluded June 15, Duvernay-Tardif has been learning anesthesia.
Real anesthesia. In the OR of a Montreal hospital.
“And we start early,” Duvernay-Tardif said in the streetside restaurant of a downtown Toronto hotel. “We’ve got to be there before the OR (operating room) starts, so we’re beginning at, like, 7 or 7:30 in the morning.
“But we’re done early enough so I can still train properly and be in shape. I have lots of time to do more than just lifting to stay in shape.”
In doing this, Duvernay-Tardif is merely augmenting his medical knowledge in his quest to become, some time early next spring, the first man in more than 60 years to earn his M.D. while playing in the NFL. (The Pro Football Hall of Fame says the most recent player to do so probably was Chicago Bears receiver Bill McColl, in 1955. McColl later became an orthopedic surgeon.)
“I’d maxed out my emergency rotation,” Duvernay-Tardif said. “And anesthesia has a lot to do with physiology, and also a lot of skills like intubating people. We need that in emergency. So I’m practising with that — the effects of different drugs and seeing the immediate effect on people.”
This, after Duvernay-Tardif concluded his requisite postgraduate clinical training earlier this off-season. From early February through early May, the fourth-year NFLer worked rotational months in geriatrics, at his forte (emergency-room trauma) and at a small Quebec hospital that specializes in treating burns and toxidromes. The morning after the conclusion of the latter, he flew to Kansas City to join the Chiefs’ voluntary spring practices, in progress.
Duvernay-Tardif is scheduled to complete his anaesthesiology stint on July 25. Less than 48 hours later, on the 27th, he is due to report to Chiefs training camp. Nice one-day summer vacay, eh? “I prefer it like this,” he said. Understand it’s a firm commitment, too. He can’t just drop in and drop out, on days of his choosing. The 26-year-old had to pull an extra shift this past Saturday just to free himself Monday to speak in Toronto, at a conference that included his charitable LDT Foundation’s new sponsor: egg producers from his home province (Fédération des producteurs d’oeufs du Québec).
Before that event, Duvernay-Tardif sat down for an interview with Postmedia.
To put his huge new contract in perspective, two things. First, “LDT” has become the second highest-paid Canadian football player in history, after Dallas Cowboys defensive end Tyrone Crawford of Windsor, Ont. Secondly, Duvernay-Tardif’s $20-million guarantee is nearly the equivalent of one-third of all 2017 CFL player contracts.
He said he’s shy to talk about personal finances. But when asked how his life has changed, or will soon change, as a result of hitting so lucrative a jackpot, Duvernay-Tardif said, well, it hasn’t changed.
He figured out how much money he lived on during each of his first three NFL seasons, and has arranged to continue living off that amount — and will sock away all the rest.
“Hey, I take economy class when I travel, too,” he quipped.