By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Four years after graduating from the University of Virginia with a bachelor’s degree in sociology, John-Kevin Dolce went back to school, this time to pursue a bachelor’s in biomedical sciences from the University of South Florida.
As a boy growing up on Long Island, N.Y., Dolce dreamed of becoming a doctor, and he never abandoned that goal. Never mind that he’d be in his 30s by the time he started medical school.
His mother, a physician, supported Dolce in his quest, as did the rest of his family. Others, however, questioned the unconventional career path he intended to follow.
“I’ll be honest, that’s all I ever heard,” Dolce recalled on a Zoom call from Tampa, Fla. “Along the way, I was told to go into different industries, whether it’s coaching, whether it’s personal training, whether it’s anything. People were like, ‘If you want to do medicine, you should go into nursing, so you can get started quicker.’ But for me, it’s not about the money. This is about a passion.”
In 2006, he arrived at UVA as a first-year student on a football scholarship. Nearly 20 years later, Dolce is headed back to Grounds. His five-year residency in orthopedic surgery with UVA Health begins in June.
“For me to match at UVA still feels very surreal,” said Dolce, who turns 37 in July.
“It’s a great story,” said Winston Gwathmey, a surgeon and professor who directs the orthopedic surgery residency program.
When Dolce played defensive tackle for the Cavaliers, Gwathmey was an orthopedic resident at UVA. “I was, I’d say, tangentially involved in the football team,” Gwathmey said. “I was never directly involved, but I certainly knew who John-Kevin was.”
Several of Gwathmey’s current colleagues, including David Diduch, Stephen Brockmeier and Bobby Chhabra, remembered Dolce from his playing days, too, and all of them were intrigued when they learned last year that Dolce was attending medical school.
“He sent us a really eloquent email about some of his experiences at UVA and how the medical staff there inspired him,” Gwathmey said. “It was an email that piqued our interest, just because we saw this guy actually is in medical school and he actually is interested in orthopedics. And so we started really thinking about the reality of him perhaps coming to UVA as a resident. I looked him up and was curious what he had done, and every step…