Sampson Davis: An E.R. Doctor Returns Home

It’s 1999

In the newness of a smoldering hot summer morning, Sampson Davis rides in his beat up old Honda Accord, past boarded up houses, dingy corner-situated bodegas, and beauty supply stores toward Beth Israel Medical Center. This was Brick City – the place in which he’d found himself changed. The city that sits at the core of who he is today.

It’s his first day on the job.

It was hard for Davis to have faith. It was even harder for him to realize that by putting the work in, everything would work out. Graduating from Seton Hall University with a degree in Biology was a reality even harder for him to fathom but after being convicted twice, once at thirteen and again at seventeen and flirting with the life that would have landed him in jail again, he’d found himself approaching Beth Isreal Medial Center on the first day of his career as a doctor.

For many, the phrase “I am a product of my environment,” is an excuse but for Board Certified Medical Doctor and New York Times best selling author, being a product of his environment was more than just a phrase to justify his past. It is a reality that refined and informed his work ethic while guiding him to his identity.

Davis grew up in Newark, New Jersey in 80’s when it was considered one of the countries more notorious communities for its drugs and crime epidemics. He found himself attempting to define his image in those same streets. They say you are the company you keep and, for a time, this was true for Davis.

“As I reached my teenage years, I was outgoing,” he said. “I went to the streets to find examples I could model myself after, and before long I found myself picking the wrong guys to hang out with.”

Those same guys would alter his life profoundly. In his book, “Living and Dying in Brick City: An ER Doctor Returns Home,” Davis talks about the second time he was convicted. In the moments described, he was hanging out with “Snake,” a character mentioned in the book.

Davis was an honor student at University High School in Newark when he met Rameck and George. They had some of the same classes together and clicked right away because they were great students, with strong work ethics.

Although, he had this group of friends who helped nurture positive habits, having conversations about going to college and studying for tests and exams, Davis had also a group of friends who would slightly alter his path toward upward mobility.

“21 Jump! 21 Jump,” Davis screamed.

By the grace of god and pure luck, Davis noticed a police radio on the floor of a four-door Chevy Citation. That night, the four – Snake, Duke, Manny, and Davis – ‘jumped out’ on the Montclair drug boys when they had a run in with the police.

In the moments before Davis saw the car with the police radio, he saw two men in jeans and polo shirts shouting questions about being lost.

Within a matter of a few seconds, Davis and the crew found themselves surrounded by police cars but because Davis noticed the police radio, he was able to get a head start on the rest of the boys. Enough of a head start to blend in, appear as a spectator and escape.

Although he managed to escape retribution for the time being, Davis wasn't as lucky as he thought he was. The officers found Davis’ vehicle on the scene and as a result, the police were looking for him.

Two days later, he turned himself in.

“I thank God, to this day, that I was only seventeen and a half because had I’d been a few months older, my life would’ve been very different.” Davis said.

Although his environment was conducive to breeding more delinquency, Davis simply could not find comfort in traveling down the path that countless others before him followed. He could not accept the fact that his life would be spent going from one court date to another.

“I realized that I wanted to make something of my life and that was the tough part because I didn't have any examples around me of what that looked like.” Davis said. “I just knew that I wanted more. So I would imagine what that looked like.”

Davis knew that if he stayed on this path of criminal activity, he would find himself dead or in prison.

What presented an even more pressing situation for Davis was the predominate absence of his father throughout his upbringing. However, as a kid coming up in Newark without a solid father figure, Davis found a way to hold himself accountable in the ways his father never did.

“I would have to come outside of myself and talk to myself to say ‘what are you doing?’ ‘what’s wrong with you?’ and get myself together,” he said. “So I had to motivate myself as both the child and the dad.”

Eighty-five percent of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes according to The Fathering Manifesto Project. June O’Neill and Anne Hill from Baruch College suggests that the likelihood that a young male will engage in criminal activity doubles if he is raised without a father and triples if he lives in a neighborhood with a high concentration of single-parent families.

According to another study conducted at the University of Michigan, there is a negative correlation between the absence of a father figure in childrearing, and the success of male college students, which means that males who lack a father figure more likely to drop out of college. This is due to their childhood difficulty in forming masculine identity without a male role model.

According to these statistics, one might suggest that every corner of Davis’ story should’ve landed him in jail or dead by the time he reached young adulthood.

But on the day Davis was accepted to Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, after four years of strenuous and rigorous academic training and a good amount of uncertainty for how his college career would manifest itself after graduation, Davis was in disbelief. Not because he didn't feel he was worthy, but because he’d realized, in that moment, that all of his hard work, all of those conversations he had with himself had paid off.

His mother, who just a few years before was stunned by her sons second conviction, found herself stopped in space once again. Only this time, it was as a result of Davis’ acceptance into medical school.

Today, despite the odds, Davis has published not only one but two books that made the New York Times best selling list.

Davis is also working with George Jenkins and Rameck Hunt, the two doctors in which he’d formed “The Pact” with, on “The Three Doctors Foundation.” A foundation dedicated to provide opportunities for young people to participate in activities so as to facilitate helpful projects for communities statewide.

Yesterday, we knew Sampson Davis as a man who found himself tangled in a system created for him to fail. Today, despite the odds, Dr. Davis is a symbol for resilience, courage and strength.