• Clarks Summit, Pa.
• Biochemistry Major, Philosophy Minor
• Pre-Medical Program
• Member of SJLA Honors Program
• President, Health Professions Organization
• Intern, Commonwealth Medical College

Music and medicine have a lot more in common than you might imagine. Just ask Ed DelSole.

Whether he’s playing bass in a Battle of the Bands, or volunteering on a pre-med service trip in Haiti, Ed lives by the adage, “Do something you love but always do it well.”

As a junior in high school, Ed imagined himself studying jazz or performance music in college. But then a career in medicine sparked his interest. “Medicine is really a great intersection of a lot of fields that are interesting to me,” he says. “It intersects with politics, law, humanities. It has a lot of depth.”

Scranton: A Natural Fit

So does Ed. “I read the New York Times every day,” he says, noting how he’s interested in everything from health to politics. In fact, there’s little that Ed isn’t interested in learning, and that makes The University of Scranton a natural fit. 

At Scranton, “there are professors who will push you,” says Ed. There’s also “an openness for you to teach yourself and push yourself for the sake of knowledge.”

Learning the Unexpected

Sometimes you learn the unexpected. As part of his pre-med studies, Ed worked on several research projects, and one of his professors encouraged him to pursue a career in medical research. Through this experience, Ed realized that he didn’t want to be a “researcher with a Ph.D.” He wanted to be a doctor.

“There’s this image that science is a lonely profession. But once you experience it, it really isn’t. It’s an extremely collaborative field that involves working with others,” he says.

Discovering a Mentor in Service Trips

It’s also a field that involves plenty of hard work. But that doesn’t bother Ed. “I take pride in my hard work,” he says, noting the influence of his parents. “There’s no substitute for hard work,” he adds, a belief he validated during two service trips to Haiti. Through the trips, sponsored by our Medical Alumni Council, pre-med students and medical alumni serve the poorest of the poor. Yet, despite their situations, Ed couldn’t help but notice that “these are dignified, hard-working people – people who get up before the sun rises and walk miles to work.”

In the service trips to Haiti, Ed also found a role model in alumnus Dr. Richard Bevilacqua ’83. “He gives all of himself to everything he does.”

Those words have a familiar ring for someone who will tell you that he’s “constantly going and always doing something and loving it.” As Ed DelSole will tell you, “You’re never going to be able to avoid hard work, especially if you want to go into medicine.”