MONTREAL – Congratulations to Kansas City Chiefs lineman Laurent Duvernay-Tardif. Make that Doctor Duvernay-Tardif.
The Chiefs offensive lineman graduated from medical school on Tuesday, becoming the first active NFL player to hold a medical degree.
The 6-foot-5, 321-lb. Canadian tweeted a photo of his white lab coat emblazoned with “Dr Duvernay-Tardif” and his number 76 on the back.
Duvernay-Tardif, 27, graduated from the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University, in Montreal. He was selected by the Chiefs in the sixth round of the 2014 NFL Draft, while he was in his third year of medical school.
He spent the next the next years working hard on the football field and returning to Canada during the off-season to continue medical school.
“So tonight right after graduation, I’m going back to Kansas City. Training camp is starting again tomorrow morning and then the season is right around the corner,” Dr. Duvernay-Tardif told NFL Canada.
“In terms of medicine, I think I want to give myself a year to think about, how am I going to be able to manage residency? Because it’s hard to do part-time residency with an NFL career at the same time. But really, I think I want to also enjoy the moment right now and really focus 100 percent on football right now because we know the Chiefs 2018 season is gonna be big.”
Duvernay-Tardif signed a 5-year, $41 million deal with the Chiefs in 2017.
And when his NFL career eventually comes to an end, he’ll have a pretty safe fall-back career.
