Living and Dying in Brick City

by Sampson Davis

  At first, we talked about giving the money away as a college scholarship to a needy, deserving student, but then what? The more we talked, the more we realized we wanted to do something more expansive, more hands-on. We wanted to give kids in neighborhoods like the ones where we grew up what we didn’t have: close and personal access to the array of professionals out there—doctors, nurses, lawyers, accountants, business owners, and others who could share their paths and offer one-on-one guidance. We could sponsor fun events to bring them all together, raise money for scholarships, and use our expertise in the medical field to educate the community about the array of medical problems killing us disproportionately. Kids might walk away from our events still believing they were the next Jay-Z or Kobe (and who knows, maybe they are), but we could show them early on that they had options.

  George, Rameck, and I were by far the poorest philanthropists we knew, but at least we had a structure and a little cash in place for a small grassroots operation. We began mentioning the foundation in speeches, and volunteers stepped forward to help us get set up legally, establish a website, and plan events. One of our first big activities was Mentor Day, where we recruited professionals from all over the community and matched them as closely as possible with students who had similar aspirations—the boy who dreamed of opening a business someday and the CEO; the girl who played school with her baby dolls and the real live teacher; the kid who was good with numbers and the accountant; the poor student who never thought college was a possibility and the university counselor.

  For another of the foundation’s events, the Positive Peer Pressure Challenge, Malique placed among the winners. The purpose of the challenge was to flip the way peer pressure usually works by rewarding young people who were positively influencing their peers. We asked students to write in and tell us about their efforts, and we awarded prizes—laptops to the top winners and iPods and gaming systems to those who placed second and third place. Malique had volunteered at a nursing home and chronicled his experience poignantly with photos and a journal. For his efforts, he won his first laptop.

  I’ll never forget another of the foundation’s events, its first Healthy Mind and Body Summit on July 3, 2003. It was held at the Boys and Girls Club on the same block where my parents first lived when they moved to Newark. The event drew about five hundred people throughout the day for a roster of activities that included free blood pressure and diabetes screenings, guest speakers on a variety of motivational and health topics, as well as live performances. Among the most memorable were three little dudes, ages from thirteen to fifteen, who dressed up like George, Rameck, and me, in white lab coats over their sagging jeans and T-shirts, and did an original rap to one of rapper 50 Cent’s beats. But they weren’t boasting about criminal exploits, degrading women, or dogging one another. They were telling another kind of story:

  I don’t know what you heard about the

  Three doctors from the Brick City

  George Jenkins, Rameck Hunt, and Sam D …

  It was so much fun to watch them, full of energy and enthusiasm, delivering their own interpretation of our message that education is the most permanent way off the streets. Their performance earned them their own fan club. Swooning girls wanted to take pictures with them. And I walked away feeling great, thinking, These little dudes get it. They really heard us.

  Young people like the teen rappers I met that day are why I—and all of us who want to be part of finding solutions to the violence and health crises in our country—can’t give up. We know that young people are listening and watching. And we believe that when we provide them with the information they need to make responsible choices and help them to recognize their own power, we save lives.

  14

  UNEXPECTED TWISTS

  Though I grew up less than a half hour away from it, New York City seemed about as distant as the Milky Way. It didn’t matter that Newark sat just on the other side of the Hudson River. After struggling every day to make ends meet, my parents didn’t have the money, the time, or the inclination to take us kids sightseeing in the Big Apple. As a boy, I never stood at the Statue of Liberty, saw the lights on Broadway, or strolled through Central Park. The first time I ventured to Times Square, I was in high school. My older sister Fellease, my brother Andre, and their spouses at the time allowed me to tag along one cold winter evening when they took the train into the city. I tried to play it cool, to pretend that the skyscrapers, bright lights, and fast-moving crowds didn’t faze me. But on the inside I was like a giddy elementary-school kid, savoring every minute of his first field trip. Everything seemed larger, brighter, and faster than I’d imagined.

  By the time I finally made it to Radio City Music Hall, I was twenty-seven and nearly a year into my residency at Beth Israel. Essence magazine had chosen George, Rameck, and me to receive its 2000 Lifetime Achievement Award. I was crazy excited about the award, not just because of who was singling us out—Essence magazine, one of the premier black publications—but also because of what this recognition represented. Three young doctors would be center stage before a star-studded crowd on national television alongside the community’s much-heralded music, entertainment, and sports idols. This would definitely help with our foundation’s goal of glamorizing education and bringing academic stars out of hiding, particularly in urban schools where wannabe pro athletes and rappers reign. The ceremony didn’t disappoint. Suddenly, my family and I were right in the middle of the New York glitz that I’d only seen on TV. It had been tough trying to decide how to divvy up the tickets among my family and closest friends, but in the end I was joined by my mother and father; my father’s wife, Thelma; my brother Andre and his wife, Makeba; my lifelong friend Will (whose daughter is my godchild); and my then-girlfriend. I sent limos to pick up my family, and I don’t think I’d ever seen my father, all five feet nine inches of him, walk as tall as he did into Radio City Music Hall that night. He was beaming, and my mother couldn’t stop saying how proud she was of me. There we were, the Davis clan, breathing the same air as Bill Cosby and Oprah Winfrey.

  I’d wanted Fellease to be there, but by then she was too sick. She had, however, felt well enough to help Moms prepare for the event. The two of them had gone shopping together, and for a rare moment, they were just mother and daughter, enjoying life in its simplicity, without the angst caused by addiction and disease. The two of them chose a pants suit—a white evening jacket with black slacks—for Moms, who relished the fact that Fellease had arranged a hair appointment for her. “You know your sister picked out my outfit, helped me with my makeup, and made me get my hair done,” she bragged to me that night—this from a woman who would choose to wear a wig over her own hair any day.

  When Fellease died the next year, I dropped by to see Moms one summer day and was stunned to find her bald. She had shaved off every inch of her hair. She read the shock in my eyes and responded before I could even speak: “It was too hot, Marshall, and so I had to cut it off,” she said matter-of-factly. To this day, I believe that this small act was her way of regaining control of her life after Fellease’s death. I’m no psychologist, but I know this: Moms couldn’t do a thing about her daughter’s addiction, or the suffering it caused, or the AIDS that finally killed her, but it was hot, and her hair was sweaty, and she didn’t want to be bothered with hot, sweaty hair, and she certainly could do something about that.

  The Essence award opened my world a bit wider. Oprah’s producers called, and Rameck, George, and I later appeared on her show, as well as the Today show. Radio hosts Tavis Smiley and Tom Joyner also interviewed us on their top-rated black radio programs. Our memoir became a bestseller, and we began sharing our story all over the country, from classrooms to corporate boardrooms to auditoriums. Our foundation grew, attracting the volunteers needed to carry out our mentoring and scholarship programs. My social life got an upgrade, too. I no longer had to talk my way behind the ropes to many of the A-list parties and hot spots, which was, quite frankly, intoxicatin
g to a young single doctor who’d made it his mission to explore the New York he’d missed as a child. New York became my escape from the stress of work. After a long, mentally exhausting shift, I’d dash home, shower and change, grab some food on the run, and make my way through the Holland Tunnel into Manhattan. Often, I’d party until the wee hours of morning, racing the sunrise to get home. I’d sleep three or four hours and then head back to the hospital to start all over again. I didn’t need much sleep—at least, that’s what I told myself.

  So there I was one winter night, at the Soho Grand Hotel for pop star Mariah Carey’s surprise birthday party. I looked up, and Denzel was on my left and music mogul L. A. Reid on my right. Still new to these types of events, I played it cool, mingling like I belonged in this glamorous crowd. But every now and then, when I saw another familiar famous face, I had the urge to rush over and say, “Hey, I’m a big fan of your work! May I have your autograph?”

  As usual, I hung out until just before sunrise, and then started the half-hour drive home. I did everything I could to overpower the desire to sleep—danced in the car, bopping up and down on my seat, and sang out loud. I even rolled down the windows and stuck my face into the frigid air. I made it home safely, but in three hours, I was up again, racing to the hospital for the Wednesday morning lecture, where residents learn the meat and grit of the E.R. I returned home for lunch, changed into my scrubs, and went back to work for an overnight shift. Staying alert during those twelve hours—well, let’s just say it was a challenge. At about 2:00 A.M., I entered a room to check on a patient who had complained of a migraine. The room was dark to help ease the patient’s pain, and she was asleep. I nudged her, and she moaned, “Leave me alone.” I tried again, and she uttered her demand even more forcefully.

  I pulled a plastic chair to her bedside with the intent to take her medical history, and then spoke loudly to get her attention. She muttered a few more choice words, and that’s all I remember. The next thing I knew, I heard voices. I opened my eyes to find practically the entire emergency department staff, including my boss, surrounding me, staring, with worry in their eyes. Somehow, the dark room, the patient’s refusal to wake up, and my exhaustion had caused me to crash right there. It was too late to pretend to carry on with business as usual. I was busted. Then, for some strange reason, the whole scene just seemed funny. I mumbled something about keeping my patient company and burst out laughing hysterically. My colleagues joined in. I guess they were relieved to know I was only sleeping.

  Fortunately, the residency director took it all in stride and didn’t say a word. I’d never stumbled before that point, and my work ethic was not in question. But I didn’t need a reprimand to know that my body and mind had reached their limits. As a doctor, I should have known better. The medical community has long debated the effects of sleep deprivation among medical residents, who traditionally work excessive hours (without even considering personal factors that can exacerbate the issue). Numerous reports have shown that lack of sleep harms physicians’ job performance and increases the potential for medical errors. A few years later, in 2003, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education would revise its guidelines, including an eighty-hour cap on the maximum weekly hours young doctors can work, but permitting shifts up to thirty hours. Critics argued that the changes did not go far enough. A congressional probe would ultimately push the council, in 2011, to implement more changes, including a maximum sixteen-hour work shift, followed by at least eight hours off, for residents. And the debate over further guidelines continues.

  Before these new rules and my own literal wake-up call, I was like many busy people who think they don’t need much sleep to function well. I now know better. While it is true that the amount of sleep a person needs is as individual as the person, the National Sleep Foundation estimates that the average healthy man or woman needs between seven and nine hours a night. Too little sleep (generally six hours or less) slows reaction time and impairs vision and judgment, which can result in tragic consequences, particularly on the road. Drowsy drivers cause more than 100,000 motor vehicle accidents each year, 1,550 of them resulting in death and another 71,000 in injuries, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Studies also show that staying awake for more than twenty hours can cause impairment equal to that of a person considered legally drunk.

  I was lucky. I never caused any accidents on the road, my patient didn’t wake up during my ordeal, and the rest of that fateful night was relatively slow. But I resolved then that it would never happen again. I couldn’t continue at the same pace. I had to achieve greater balance in my life, and making sure I got enough sleep was a huge part of that.

  The other part was figuring out how to balance the demands of my work life with what had become my equal passion: community service. I was certain that reaching beyond the hospital walls to share with young people a message of self-empowerment could in the long run save as many lives as my work inside the emergency room. Problem was, time. I never had enough of it. Whenever the weekly schedule was sent out, I began calling my colleagues to try to negotiate a shift swap so that I could make it to a foundation event or speaking engagement. My co-workers were accommodating when they could be, but I worried how long their patience would last. That’s what pushed me into Darrell Terry’s office with a proposal one day in 2002.

  In any profession, it’s always good to know somebody among the higher-ups who has your back. For me, that was Darrell Terry, then vice president of operations at Beth Israel. He was in his late thirties when we met in 2000, and I quickly connected to him as a friend and mentor. From my early days of residency, he looked after me and made sure I knew that his door was always open to me. I took those words literally and many times walked in unannounced just to chat. His office was on the hospital’s main floor, in the administrative suite, which housed all of the executives’ offices. An assistant sat just inside the suite to greet guests and announce a visitor to the appropriate administrator. I often walked in, greeted her, and kept on trekking toward Darrell’s office. Sometimes, the assistant would stop me mid-stride: “Mr. Terry is in a meeting. Would you like him to call the E.R.?” A short time later, Darrell would make his way to my department, and if things were quiet, we’d catch up on the goings-on at the hospital, sports, and our personal lives. I admired that at the time he was a single father raising his son and daughter (though he would tell me later that he was uncomfortable with the well-intentioned praise he got from so many people for doing what he considered his responsibility).

  Darrell had grown up nearby in East Orange, and, like me, had been born at Beth Israel. We both felt strongly that the hospital should be more than just a place where people worked, that it had an obligation to give back to the poor community that sustained it. But with a bachelor’s degree in business and a master’s in healthcare administration, Darrell was also a company man. He had taken the traditional route up the corporate ladder, where the gray-haired guy passes you the torch after you’ve spent time in the trenches earning your stripes, and he was determined to help me understand the way things worked. When I talked with him about my desire to move up quickly at the hospital, he urged patience. Slow down, I had my entire career ahead of me, he advised. That’s mostly how we differed. I felt an urgency to get things done right away, to move up so that I would be in a position to help direct some of the hospital’s resources into improving the surrounding community. As I saw it, the community needed us now. The Legends, Snakes, and Debras out there kept showing up in the E.R., day after day, shot up, beaten up, and damaged beyond repair. What if it was part of my job to find ways to help the hospital reach beyond the confines of its own walls and into the surrounding community?

  That’s the idea I posed to Darrell during a conversation one day. He was intrigued. From a strictly business point of view it made sense for the hospital to use me in that way. The 2002 publication of The Pact had raised my profile dramatically. There were constant requests f
or interviews, and cameras began following me around the hospital so often that some of my co-workers jokingly called me “Dr. Hollywood.” Beth Israel was a natural part of my narrative, which brought it into the public eye. Darrell joked that hospitals more often got that kind of publicity when they cut off the wrong leg. He promised to talk to his bosses to see what they could work out.

  Shortly after my residency ended on July 1, 2002, Darrell called me into his office to share the good news: I had been promoted to part-time director of community outreach. While I would continue in my role as an attending physician in the emergency department, seven hours of my workweek could be devoted to community work. There was no detailed job description, which was great because it allowed me the flexibility to define the position. I was ecstatic. The protected hours eased my schedule somewhat, allowing me to do some of my community speaking engagements on company time. But I also helped to create new programs, like an anti-smoking campaign that included therapy and a support group for men and women who were addicted to nicotine. They met regularly at the hospital and shared their challenges and triumphs. I also became the go-to guy when high schools and colleges brought student groups to the hospital. I talked to students, often over lunch, about how Beth Israel had changed the course of my life and how they, too, could achieve their dreams. Interested students shadowed me in the emergency room, and I took part in the hospital’s annual Black History Month celebration honoring a local hero.

  I also participated in the hospital’s yearly event that brought together the families of organ donors with the patients who received their loved one’s organs. There was always such joy in the room among those who got a second chance at life and the family members who got to see at least a part of their loved ones live on. The program inspired me to remember every time I renewed my driver’s license to check the box agreeing to become an organ donor (and to let my family members know my wishes) if I happened to meet an untimely end. It was a commitment that I’d first made in medical school, and it’s a simple way that each of us can have a profound impact on another person’s life.