James B. Dolan, M. D.
James B. Dolan, M. D.
4600 SW 46 Court
Suite 250
Ocala, FL 34474
Contact: drjimdolan@mac.com
Home: 352‑732‑0638
Office: 352‑873‑8735 (best contact number)
Scholarship Year and amount 1969 / $500.00
At the beginning of my communication, let me say how happy I was to hear today from my mother that the William G. Selby and Marie Selby Foundation was soliciting these essays. It is wonderful to see that the Foundation is celebrating its 50' anniversary and has touched so many lives. Although it is always uncomfortable to sing one's own praises, I welcome this as an opportunity to say thank you for the start you gave me, and report to you on your investment's return some thirty‑six years later.
Let me start by establishing my bona fides and tell you that I am a fifth generation Floridian. My great great grandfather, Miguel Guerrero, settled an island off Terra Ciea, circa 1850, and married the niece of Madam Jo Azteroth. He served in the Civil War for the Confederacy, his wife remaining at home because she was a better marksman. He returned to Terra Ciea after the War and lived there until he, his wife and two of their children died during a yellow fever outbreak. One of the two surviving sons was adopted by the Forgerty's of van line fame, and as luck would have it, my progenitor was adopted by a Methodist minister, The Rev. Lee. The family homestead is now named McGill's Island in McGill's Bay, a corruption of "Miguel."
The majority of my family has remained in Bradenton and Sarasota since, and along with my mother and sister lives there now. My grandfather at various times ran a mullet net boat out of Palmetto and with other various assorted brothers and cousins had a fish‑house on Sneed's Island. My grandmother, I am told, was the first schoolteacher on Anna Maria Island. My mother graduated from Gordon Keller Nursing School in Tampa, I was the first person in my family to attend and graduate from a University, and without my National Merit Scholarship and the Selby Grant would not have financially been able to do so.
I attended Stetson University for two years, and then transferred to Wake Forest University, supplementing my academic scholarships there with a swimming scholarship and graduated from Wake, with a BS in Biology, in 1973. 1 subsequently did post baccalaureate work, obtaining two more degrees, at the University of Central Florida. After UCF, I applied and was accepted to the University of Florida College of Medicine, from which I graduated. I completed my Orthopedic Residency at Shands in Gainesville, and remained on faculty there for a year. I am currently in private practice, doing general orthopedic surgery in Ocala, moving here two years ago after nearly fourteen years of practice in Jacksonville. Along the way, I met and married my wife of 28 years, Cheryl, with whom I have two lovely children, Courtney and Jimmy, both now in college.
In the interim, I have had many opportunities to share my good fortune and training with those around me. Between graduate school and medical school, I was able to volunteer for four months at the Baptist Hospital in Jibla, Yemen with the missionaries there, several of whom were later killed by assassins. I was able to help the hospital establish a rudimentary clinical laboratory and blood bank during my time with them. During medical school, I served as a counselor at the UF Summer Juvenile Diabetes Camp at Lake Crystal while doing research with the Department of Pediatrics in various aspects of juvenile diabetes. During my first year of medical school, I was elected Class President, then in my sophomore year chaired Freshman Orientation. I was appointed to the University Ethics Committee, served on the Student Advocacy Committee, and served as the student representative on the Accreditation Task Force as well as the Curriculum Committee. The award, of which I am most proud, received at graduation, was the W. F. Enneking Teaching Award given by the Department of Orthopedics to the senior medical student voted best teacher by the first and second year medical students. Dr. Enneking, a giant in orthopedic oncology, became one of those whom I continue to count as a mentor. My wife and I were also active in First Baptist Church, Gainesville during that time where I taught the College Sunday School Class and was ordained as a deacon.
I began serving organized medicine during medical school, joining the Alachua County Medical Society, the Florida Medical Association and the American Medical Association. I was the first medical student sent by the ACMS as a delegate to the Florida Medical Association House of Delegates and served on many committees in the ACMS, leaving the Board of Directors in 1990 as the senior member of the Board. During medical school I served as the UF student representative to the American Association of Medical Schools. I began my leadership service to the Florida Medical Association by serving as Chairman of the Resident Physicians Section Steering Committee and have continued to serve Florida physicians through the FMA since that time chairing and serving on multiple committees and councils. I am currently in my third year as FMA Treasurer, and am the Immediate Past President of FLAMPAC, the FMA's Political Acton Committee.
Six months after entering private practice, I was called to active duty for Operation Desert Storm. I served as a Major in the United States Army Medical Corps, assigned to the 24' Infantry Division, Mechanized out of Fort Stewart, Georgia during that war. I continued to serve in the Individual Ready Reserve assigned the 24thID, until completing my commission with an Honorable Discharge several years ago.
During private practice, I have served as a volunteer physician for sports teams ranging from site physician for the Florida Track and Field Junior Olympics to multiple high school football and sports teams, going with the Bolles School Bulldogs to their FHSAA State 2A Football Championship in 2002. 1 am currently the team physician for the Dunnellon High School Tigers. I have also served as the local screening physician for the Elks (BPOE) Harry‑Anna Children's Hospital, and was chosen Citizen of the Year by the Jacksonville Elks in 1994 for that service.
My family and I are confirmed boating and offshore fishing addicts. I have volunteered as Tournament Physician, and have been a corporate sponsor, for the Barta Blue Marlin Classic at Walker's Key, a charity tournament benefiting the IGFA Junior Anglers for the last several years. I am currently the Commodore of Epping Forest Yacht Club in Jacksonville, where I have served on many committees during my tenure on the EFYC Board of Governors.
I am pleased to report that one of my sisters, always allowing big brother to lead the way, also attended the University of Florida after graduating from Duke and is currently an oncologist in St. Petersburg, commuting on a daily basis from her "farm" in Rubonia. Our extended family was honored recently by having a school in Bradenton, The Electa Lee Middle Magnet School for Fine Arts and Communications named after Electa Lee, my great grandmother, who like my grandmother Suzie Lee Bailey, was a pioneer school teacher.
Let me conclude by saying I am proudest however, of being able to use the education and skill that I begin acquiring at the postgraduate level in 1969 to help those people who come to me every day with orthopedic problems. How rewarding it is to restore their quality of life, to reassure them that some problem is minor, or when it is serious, work with them to bring them back to health. I tell my children as they struggle with the decision of what to do with their own lives, the true measure of success in life is to wake up every day anxious to go to work, to be justly compensated for what you do, and to have those whom you serve say "thank you for what you've done for me." The William G. Selby and Marie Selby Foundation played no small part in allowing me to begin the journey that brought me to where I am today. Let me say "thank you for what you have done for me." I hope you will receive this essay not as a summary of some of my proudest achievements, but rather as an inventory of how your investment in one life has matured. Thank you for being an important part of my life. I hope beyond the competition, you will compile these essays in some form to serve as encouragement and inspiration to those the Foundation helps to start on their life's journey, just as the Foundation helped and encouraged me.