Coronavirus: NFL player who also has doctorate in medicine now on COVID-19 front line

Just months after his team won the Super Bowl, Kansas City Chiefs offensive guard Laurent Duvernay-Tardif has swapped his red-and-gold gear for a much different uniform: a white coat and scrubs.

According to CNN, Duvernay-Tardif, 29, became "the first medical doctor to play in the NFL" after he received his doctorate in medicine from Canada's McGill University in 2018. Now he's putting that medical training to good use in his native Quebec, where he's working at a long-term care center, he wrote in a Sports Illustrated article posted this week.

"My first day back in the hospital I felt nervous the night before, but a good nervous, like before a game."@LaurentDTardif, the Chiefs guard with a doctorate in medicine, pens a first-person on moving to the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic https://t.co/0I2QasiX4I
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) April 27, 2020

Duvernay-Tardif said Canada’s health ministry recently began trying to recruit more health care workers amid the coronavirus pandemic, so he decided to help.

"I had to check in with the Chiefs from a contract standpoint," Duvernay-Tardif wrote. "They've been amazing. They were proud of the fact that I wanted to go help. They said they would support me."

Friday marked his first day on the job at the facility.

"I found out that I would be working for now in more of a nursing role, helping relieve the workers who have already been in place," he wrote in the Sports Illustrated article. "There's so much that needs to happen just to visit with every patient — masks donned and hands washed and equipment like gloves and visors tugged on and off and thrown away. I handled a medication cart, making sure to administer the right dosage and in the proper way. Honestly, I was drained after — and looking forward to going back."

One person there has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, which “has not spread to other patients yet,” he said.

Duvernay-Tardif, who is a member of the NFL Players Association task force, also is helping "to examine different scenarios for the safest measures to put in place when the game returns," he wrote.