Ashbee scholarship winner became Boston-area doctor, Bruins fan

Jon DuBois has a rooting interest in the Boston Bruins as they try to win their second Stanley Cup in the last three seasons.

"I'm a Bruins fan mostly because my kids grew up with the Bruins," DuBois, a graduate of Abington High and a highly respected cancer doctor at a Massachusetts hospital, said the other night. "But I grew up with the Flyers and followed every game. I'm a Bruins fan as a transplant, but deep down, you're always a Flyers fan."

DuBois, 52, helped coordinate the care of cancer patients whose treatments were disrupted by the Boston Marathon bombings and hospital lockdowns in April.

DuBois had his career path indirectly established by the death of one of the Flyers' former players, defenseman Barry Ashbee, who died of leukemia in 1977.

DuBois' medical journey began after the Flyers established memorial scholarships in Ashbee's name. They were awarded to two senior high school hockey players who demonstrated skill and good sportsmanship.

DuBois, who grew up in Rydal and was captain of the Abington team, was the public-school winner in 1979.

When he accepted the award, DuBois said he would dedicate his career to Ashbee by becoming a cancer doctor.

He kept his promise.

At the time he won the award, DuBois was working as an orderly during the summer at Jeanes Hospital in Fox Chase, gaining exposure to cancer patients.

When Ashbee died, DuBois said, "it solidified my interest in not just becoming a physician, but also becoming a hematologist and medical oncologist. His passing from a medical illness like leukemia crystallized for me how vulnerable we all are from a medical perspective, and that even 'famous' people were not immune to such illnesses."

Donna Ashbee, Barry's wife, resides in Newtown Square and still attends most of the Flyers' home games. She was moved that her husband had given DuBois incentive.

"It's so wonderful that it gave him a goal to aim for," she said.

DuBois is medical director of the Massachusetts General Cancer Center at Emerson Hospital-Bethke, located just outside Boston in Concord, Mass. He is chief of hematology-oncology, and chairman of the cancer committee at Emerson.

DuBois attended Bowdoin College in Maine and then went to the Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He finished his medical and specialty training in Boston.

DuBois, a forward, played hockey for two years at Bowdoin, a Division III school. He later helped coach in one of his son's youth hockey teams. "But because of always being on-call at the hospital, I could only serve as an assistant," he said.

DuBois and his wife, Heidi, a Cheltenham native, have three children: Benjamin, 19; Andrew, 16; and Emma, 13. They live in the Boston suburb of Needham. It's Bruins territory, a town where former Boston forward/bad boy Derek Sanderson resides, as does former Bruins coach Mike Milbury.

Although he is rooting for the Bruins to defeat Chicago in the Finals, DuBois says the Flyers were "everything to me and my friends during the '70s. I remember playing street hockey after school every day. Everything in my room was Flyers, including a large painted logo on my door. The Flyers fueled my passion for ice hockey."

And Ashbee steered him to a path to help find a cure for cancer.

"It made sense to me to become a cancer specialist to try to help those folks who may need it the most," he said. "Particularly on 'hard' days, my winning the Ashbee award so many years ago reminds me I am doing what I was meant to do."

Right now, one of his cancer patients is a former Bruin who played during the Bobby Orr era.

DuBois, who frequently returns to Rydal to visit his parents and relatives - he attended the Flyers' late-season win over the Bruins at the Wells Fargo Center - respectfully declined to identify the ex-player.

"I am sure my patient would allow me to use his name, [but] I am uncomfortable asking him because he would likely only say yes because of my being his physician," he said. "I would never want to take advantage of my role as his oncologist."

DuBois paused.

"I can tell you. He does tell me that Bobby Clarke was as dirty a player as some people say," DuBois added with a smile.

As for the battle against cancer, DuBois says progress is being made.

"We are coming along with more molecular and targeted therapies, rather than throwing more chemotherapy and poison therapies at patients," he said. "Chemotherapy is a nonspecific, less-targeted approach. If you can target a particular mutation of a cancer cell and design a medicine against that, it's a much more elegant way to kill the cancer cell - as opposed to chemo or trying to throw weed killer at it, so to speak. And there's less side effects and toxicity to the patient."