Monash School of Medicine hadn't been faced with a request like this before. Students press pause all the time, but the university had never had someone defer a medical degree indefinitely to start an AFL career. That changed when the Western Bulldogs selected Sam Davidson in last November's AFL Draft.

The 23-year-old has already completed five years of medicine and only has one year left to finish his degree. Last year, Davidson studied an optional honours degree to help him to get to training on time, finally allowing him to give football a proper shot.

It worked. After spending half of 2022 playing for Sale City in the North Gippsland League, then the first five rounds of 2023 with South Mildura in the Sunraysia League, before ending that season with Maffra in the Gippsland League – all due to rural hospital placements – Davidson starred for Richmond in the VFL last winter.

Recruiters started paying attention in the days before the Mid-Season Rookie Draft, after the kid with blond hair shone on the MCG in the Dreamtime at the 'G curtain raiser. When he kicked four goals against Port Melbourne a fortnight later, then six more against the Northern Bullants the next month, the cat was out of the bag. By the end of the season, Davidson won the Fothergill-Round-Mitchell Medal awarded to the best young talent in the VFL. 

Davidson is now 10 weeks into life in the AFL but, as expected, he still has one eye on his long-term future. Right now, he wants to follow in the footsteps of his mum and older brother by becoming a paediatrician. He is about to start a part-time PhD for the next five years, hoping, by the time that is done, he will be forced to face another interesting conversation with the powers-that-be at Monash University.

"Medicine is a full-time degree, so while I'm playing footy, I can't continue. It's an intense degree; you've got to be at the hospital four or five times a week," Davidson explained to AFL.com.au on the Western Bulldogs' pre-season camp in Queensland. 

"I did a research year last year, which allowed me to balance uni and VFL footy a bit easier. It was optional but it is good for your resume. My research was in 'Can care givers help and predict sepsis in paediatric children? Can parents detect when their kids are getting sick?' That was the crux of it.

"I'm about to start working on a part-time PhD which will span approximately five years. You do hope that your research can make a bit of a difference and impact. If I'm lucky enough to have a long career in AFL, then we will see what happens with the study and make a decision down the track when it comes to it."

Davidson is not the first player in the AFL era to juggle medicine and football, although the demands of the game have increased significantly since Matthew Liptak joined Adelaide in 1991. At that stage, Liptak had completed three years of his degree at Flinders University and had put his study on hold to chase a contract with the Crows ahead of the club's inaugural season. 

Liptak played 116 games for the Crows in the 1990s, winning the best and fairest in 1996 while remarkably working 70 hours a week as an orthopaedic surgeon. He retired at 29 to fully commit to being a doctor. Adelaide ruckman Reilly O'Brien has completed three degrees and wants to pursue a similar path down the track but, like Davidson, he must wait until his AFL career is over. There are, simply, not enough hours in the day to juggle both careers at the same time.  

ELIMINATION final day was bittersweet for Davidson. He grew up a dyed-in-the-wool Western Bulldogs supporter, never missing a game in Melbourne as a kid and teenager. His view was partially blocked by a pole in 2016, but he was there, wedged in the standing room section of the MCG next to his younger brother to watch his beloved club end a 62-year premiership drought.

When list boss Sam Power and national recruiting manager Dom Milesi booked in a home visit that morning – the only time they met face-to-face with him – hours before the game against Hawthorn, Davidson wasn't the only one excited in his house.

"I have been a diehard fan my whole life," he said. "I never really had a choice. My grandpa grew up in Footscray and then dad is from England, so he didn't have any say. My whole family are mad Doggies, especially mum. I went through all the highs and lows of being supporter. I admit, I was a nuffy supporter.

"It was a bit strange to do it on that day. I clocked on that it was the elimination final day, so it was a big day for the club. I think Sammy and Dom said it was good to take their mind off the evening ahead. It was a strange experience talking to my boyhood club that morning, then going to watch them that night at the MCG. Unfortunately, the game didn't go the way of the Dogs. But to now be at this club is pretty cool."

By that stage of the year, Essendon had considered Davidson mid-season before ultimately picking Northern Bullants half-back Saad El-Hawli instead. Collingwood, West Coast, Sydney and Greater Western Sydney had all expressed varying levels of interest, along with Geelong, who have made recruiting mature-age talent a fine art. Tom Stewart, Tim Kelly, James Podsiadly, Tom Atkins, Shane Mumford and Harry Taylor in the past, plus Shaun Mannagh and Lawson Humphries more recently. 

Power and Milesi sat opposite Davidson at the kitchen table in the lounge room, seeking the answers they needed to hear. The meeting went for just under an hour before the Western Bulldogs recruiters departed without providing any indication of what they would do in late November.  

"I'm a different story to your average 18-year-old draftee, so they were trying to wrap their heads around where I'd been, what I was doing and what type of person I was. It was more for them trying to work out who I was. They were trying to figure out the story," he said.

"I vividly remember the interview finished – mum and dad had left halfway through the interview – and I had to go out probably five or 10 minutes after the interview. Dom and Sam were standing and chatting by their cars. I remember driving off and thinking 'Jeez I hope they've got good things to say about me'. You never really know how you go."

Davidson didn't hear from Power again before the Draft. Milesi reached out in October requesting some GPS data, but that was it. Nothing more. The Dogs were playing the game, determined to keep their cards close to their chest. 

But they would return to the Davidson residence, along with the media team, late on the night of November 21 after the club used pick No.51 on the 191cm utility, discovering a Western Bulldogs mural they missed on their first visit. 

DAVIDSON made frequent visits across town to Mission Whitten Oval as a kid, attending family days and training sessions ahead of big finals. In the hours after AFL executive general manager Laura Kane read out his name inside Marvel Stadium, a photo ricocheted around social media of the new draftee standing with his older brother and Brownlow Medallist Adam Cooney.

When Davidson turned up at the freshly redeveloped $78m training base in Footscray for the first time as a Western Bulldogs player, the only player he knew personally was Rhylee West. The pair were in different years at St Kevin's College but shared a biology class in 2018. Now they are teammates at the kennel. 

"I was in year 11 and he was year 12 and we sat a couple of seats away from each other in biology. I was probably a little bit more studious than him in that class," Davidson reminisces at Noosa's RACV Resort last week. 

"Rhylee knew he was going to get drafted; I needed to do well in that class to get to where I needed to go. He was really funny bloke at school. He was the only person that I knew coming in here. He is a very smart guy."

Taylor Duryea has quickly taken Davidson under his wing, but only after the veteran defender laid down the law. "He made sure when I came to the club that I knew that the 'Doc' nickname was his," Davidson said with a wide grin.

Duryea was anointed 'Doc' by former Hawthorn premiership teammate Matt Suckling after American rapper Dr Dre. "I've just resorted back to 'Dave-o'. I call him 'senior'; he calls me 'junior'."

Duryea is considered a coach in a waiting. The dual premiership Hawk looked finished in 2020, but now he is entering the 16th season of an AFL career where he has had to earn every single game, and every single contract, living on one-year deals for most of his adult life. "He has been very good with me," Davidson said. "I'm rooming with him. He is a really intelligent man, much more intelligent than me, that's for sure." Despite the 10-year age gap, Duryea is in Davidson's corner. 

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DAVIDSON became the 18th consecutive winner of the prestigious Fothergill-Round-Mitchell Medal to graduate from the VFL to the AFL last November, dating back to Jason Davenport in 2006 and including Michael Barlow, Adam Saad, Bayley Fritsch and Luke Ryan.

Kane Lambert is one of the most accomplished players on that list, becoming a three-time premiership player at Richmond during the Damien Hardwick dynasty, after being drafted out of the VFL at 23. Lambert coached Davidson at Punt Road last season, and along with Geelong veteran Mark Blicavs – who made his debut at 22 and has now played 270 games – have provided the blueprint for making it at the highest level after taking the long road to the top. 

"It's pretty cool to see these people, who don't get drafted the typical way, get drafted a bit later and can still make a long and prosperous career for themselves," Davidson said. "It's awesome to have those people, like Blicavs, come in and play straight away and then plays hundreds of games for their clubs. It does provide a bit of belief that I can have a long and very good career here."

Davidson shares some of Blicavs' gut-running gift and has also been likened to Rising Star winner Ollie Dempsey – another Geelong player with an unconventional path to the AFL – who has a similar head of hair.

Luke Beveridge has been using Davidson predominantly on a wing in match simulation, where he kicked three goals in the intra-club on the pre-season camp, while also spending time as a third tall in attack. With just over a month between now and the season opener against North Melbourne, Davidson is doing everything in his control to be standing on a wing at Marvel Stadium on March 15.

"It's definitely the No.1 goal at the moment," Davidson said. "When you come into a new club you try and wrap your head around getting to know everyone, but after that everyone is aiming to be in the AFL side for round one. There is a lot to learn coming to a new club, new tactics, new game plan. You want to put your best foot forward at training. I do have the belief I can play round one. I'm training and playing as hard as possible until then. Hopefully the coaches have a tough task trying to choose the team and my name is potentially in the team."

And if that happens, Davidson will go from standing in the outer alongside nearly 98,000 other supporters in the last game the Western Bulldogs played, to playing in the 23 the next time that counts. Spending time with iconic club figures like Marcus Bontempelli and Tom Liberatore is starting to become normal, but Davidson's path to this point is anything but normal.