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Rx: "Chase Down Your Dream"

Photo credit: Roderick Heath/Campus Echo Sampson Davis, left, Rameck Hunt and George Jenkins say they are doing "hand-to-hand combat" with "all kinds of abuse."

By Quentin Gardner
Black College Wire

Fifteen years ago, three teenage boys from the street made a pact: they would stick together, go to college, graduate and become doctors.

Growing up in Newark, N.J., they knew firsthand the struggles of life in the inner city.

The trio overcame the obstacles and earned medical degrees to become "The Three Doctors."

North Carolina Central University heard the authors of the best-selling “The Pact: Three Young Men Make a Promise and Fulfill a Dream” on March 28.

Rameck Hunt, George Jenkins and Sampson Davis had one main message: Environment and race are not excuses for underachievement.

Davis, 33, is a certified emergency room attending physician at Beth Israel Medical Center in Newark. He said children need positive peer pressure to help them stay focused on their dreams.

“Make sure the company you keep is headed in the right direction,” said Davis. “Who knows? The life you save may be your own.”

Jenkins, 33, is on the community health faculty at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

Jenkins said it was up to the individual to achieve. He told students they were in control of their own lives.

“You need to chase down your dream as if your life depended on it,” said Jenkins.

Hunt, 32, is a board-certified internist at the University Medical Center at Princeton, N.J., and clinical assistant professor of Medicine at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, N.J.

He acknowledged that focusing on his dream took a long time.

“I felt I was in an alternate universe — everything that’s good is bad, everything bad is good,” said Hunt.

Hunt gave a brief two-question pop quiz.

First, he asked how many cranial nerves were in the brain. Then, how many times rapper-actor Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson has been wounded by gunshots.

The crowd erupted in response to the second question.

“I’m tired of celebrating ignorance,” he said.

That led to a standing ovation.

“What’s important at the end of the day to you?” Hunt asked the audience.

Timothy Holley, chairman of the committee sponsoring the event, said he "enjoyed the program immensely. The three doctors’ message was immediately relevant to university students.”

Davis, Hunt and Jenkins also are authors of “We Beat the Street,” a book of life lessons demonstrated through the doctors’ experiences. It targets young children and parents. In 2002, the three doctors received the Essence Award for their accomplishments and leadership.

Oprah Winfrey said on her television show, “You guys are bigger than rock stars! I think you guys are the premier role models of the world.”

Hunt said, “We have a compelling passion for speaking and telling our story.”

“This is not to boast or brag," he said. "We just recognize that we are in head-to-head combat with drugs, mental and physical illnesses, teenage pregnancy and all kinds of abuse, and we accept the responsibility of making a difference by being role models and touching lives.”

The trio founded The Three Doctors Foundation, which has the mission of inspiring and creating opportunities for communities through education, mentoring and health awareness.

“Strength comes from knowing the power to overcome adversity and prevail lies within oneself, and you have to first realize that,” said Davis. Once that happens, "you have to accept accountability for your life and take the necessary steps to turn hopes and dreams into realities,” he said.

Quentin Gardner, a student at North Carolina Central University, writes for the Campus Echo.

Posted April 10, 2006