Acclaimed cardiologist remained a West Philly homeboy at heart

My cardiologist retired from practice last week. I am sad. I will miss him.

Yes, he was a great heart doctor, but even more a terrific person. Ask anyone who came in contact with him - colleagues, staff, neighbors, patients - and they will validate that statement in spades. Everybody loves him.

Dr. Fred Bove is simply someone in perfect simpatico with his soul.

He's also a certified Philly guy - a true homeboy. He grew up in a row house in West Philly, went to West Catholic High School, Drexel University, and Temple University Medical School; he loves Sixers' and Big Five basketball; he loves running and writing. He rose to lofty levels: chief of cardiology at Temple University Medical School; team doctor to the 76ers; a Navy Reservist serving in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War; a writer for several medical websites; a Navy-trained specialist on diving medicine - in fact, the co-author of the critically acclaimed book, Diving Medicine; routinely recognized as one of the top cardiologists in the region; and an accepted expert on the health efficacy of hyperbaric chambers.

Whew!

All this, and at heart he remained that row house street kid. Philly was the place that gave him everything he wanted growing up: family, boyhood friends, his parish church, a tight-knit Italian Catholic neighborhood. Talking with him is the same as talking to your next door neighbor on the stoop. He once said, "I'm a subway guy. I rode the subways to high school, college, and medical school."

On our get-togethers, he would discuss writing, basketball, and running.

"What about my heart?" I would ask.

"Good," he would peremptorily say. "Now, I particularly liked your essay in the Inquirer on autumn and the necessity of natural space as the right environment for thinking."

And he loved talking basketball. "You had a great coach in Harry Litwack," he would often comment about my coach during my years at Temple.

"Yes I did."

But it was running that jacked his spirit and discussions, particularly after I first told him I was a runner. He commiserated with me recently when I told him an old basketball-related injury - a torn anterior cruciate ligament - had finally ravaged the meniscus in my knee and reduced me to walking.

Running was Bove's leisure time passion. Even today, as he is on the cusp of turning 80, he still gets out on the trails, albeit traveling more slowly over fewer miles. The Broad Street Run was his favorite race, and he completed the famous Philly 10-miler more than 20 times. "My best time was 73 minutes, in 1981," he told me, eliciting a wry smile, and then adding, "Since then my times have been going up as fast as my age."

Bove has been running since 1952 when he ran for the West Catholic cross-country and track teams, and has always taken a pragmatic approach, believing that running kept him ripening in his profession, and not rotting. It's just what the doctor ordered.

"Running is practicing what I preach in heart health," he told me. "Life does not quit as you get older."

As I get older, there are those days I wish would never come.

Bove's retirement was one of those days.

And I am sad.

B.G. Kelley is a Philadelphia writer. bgklly@yahoo.com