 Bove was raised in New York City.He earned his undergraduate degree at the College of the Holy Cross, earned his medical degree from Albany Medical College in 1972, and went to University of Michigan for his residency.He completed that in 1980, then after a sojourn at Great Ormond Street Hospital as a fellow, spent five years as a surgeon at State University of New York in Syracuse before being recruited back to Michigan in 1985 to become head of the pediatric cardiac surgery division.