Living and Dying in Brick City

by Sampson Davis

  “Doc, you don’t understand. I can’t lose her. She is my world.”

  His pain was raw, and I wanted to do all I could to make things turn out right for him. But this was truly out of my hands. I excused myself and told him that I would return as soon as I had the results.

  “Dr. Davis, pick up on 7240,” a voice over the intercom said a few minutes later.

  I reached for the phone. It was the radiologist calling with the results. The news wasn’t good. Mrs. Santos had a large bleed with herniation of the brain and compression of the brain stem, explaining her low heart rate. She was basically brain dead. The life support machine was breathing for her. I returned to the room and pulled up a chair next to her son. With elbows resting on his knees, he leaned over his mother, who lay completely still in a hospital bed. The rhythmic breaths of the machine seemed louder in the silence. There is no easy way to tell someone the worst possible news about a loved one.

  “I’m so sorry to tell you this,” I began.

  My words punctured him. I could see his hope deflating as I explained that the machines were the only thing keeping his mother alive … and he would have to make the painful decision of whether and when to disconnect her from them.

  “Doc, you told me you would save her,” he replied—wanting, at this moment surely needing, to believe that I’d actually said that.

  This was grief talking. I let him vent.

  “You told me she had a chance. I want you to bring her back to me, the same way she was when I left her this morning.”

  I took a deep breath and tried to offer some comfort. “I’m so sorry, sir. I know this isn’t easy.”

  He dropped his head in his hands and wept.

  Obesity and African Americans*

  • African American women have the highest rates of being overweight or obese, compared to other groups in the United States. About four out of five African American women are overweight or obese.

  • In 2009, African Americans were 1.5 times as likely to be obese as non-Hispanic whites.

  • In 2009, African American women were 60 percent more likely to be obese than non-Hispanic white women.

  • In 2007-2008, African American children were 30 percent more likely to be overweight than non-Hispanic whites.

  HEALTH IMPACT OF OBESITY*

  • More than 80 percent of people with type 2 diabetes are overweight.

  • People who are overweight are more likely to suffer from high blood pressure and high levels of blood fats and LDL cholesterol—all risk factors for heart disease and stroke.

  • In 2007, African Americans were 50 percent less likely to engage in active physical activity than non-Hispanic whites.

  • Deaths from heart disease and stroke are almost twice the rate for African Americans as compared to whites.

  For a list of free healthy weight loss tools, go to www.+cdc.+gov/+healthy+weight/+tools/+index.+html+#Family. Or contact the CDC’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity at 1-800-232-4636 or TTY, 1-888-232-6348.

  *Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health, based on statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

  13

  REACHING OUT

  Rhenita Oglesby was a single mother in her second year of medical school in New Jersey the day we met in 2003. She had just finished reading the memoir I’d written with Rameck and George, and she wanted to tell me her story. After a book event, I noticed her waiting patiently to speak to me, and as she introduced herself, tears filled her eyes. My success had given her hope, she said, because, like me, she had failed the first part of the state board exam that all medical students must pass to stay on the road to becoming a doctor. She had overcome so much in her life to get into medical school, but after recently failing the test, she felt her dream slipping away. I knew immediately how she felt. The memory of my own failure on the same test a few years earlier was still fresh—the panic that welled in my throat as I sat in the dean’s office and received the news, the feeling of worthlessness, and the fear that all my hard work would land me short of my goal. The carrot (a medical career) was right there, dangling in front of my eyes. I could see it, smell it, and almost touch it, but I’d stumbled in my first attempt to reach for it.

  My first thought: I had to help this woman. My second: Camille had been right.

  I smiled to myself as I thought about Camille, a good friend and fellow medical student who had shared an apartment with Rameck and me the first year of medical school. I’d felt so alone after learning that I’d failed the state board exam that I isolated myself even more from both of my roommates, as well as from George, who was a short drive away in Newark, attending dental school. None of them could understand what I was going through, I thought. But during one of my worst moments, Camille told me: “You might not understand it now, Sam, but God allowed this to happen for a reason.”

  Though I appreciated Camille’s attempt to comfort me, I’m certain I didn’t believe her right then. She had passed the test. It was easy for her to think that God had some grand master plan for me that included what in the moment felt close to torture. But looking at the hurt in Rhenita’s eyes years later, I felt instantly connected to her, and my own struggles finally seemed to make more sense. She was a stranger, but no one knew what she felt better than I. “I know what you’re going through because I’ve been there,” I told her. “And I can help you get through this.”

  It felt good to be able to say that to her and to stand as an example that one failure didn’t have to be the end of the road for her. We exchanged contact information, and I later shared with her the advice that two of my trusted college advisers had given me to help me refocus my thoughts and energy. Before I had any chance of passing, they’d said, I had to find a way to reduce my stress. I’d been so worried about passing the test that I’d defeated myself mentally before I even sat down to take it. My advisers’ words prompted me to reach back to my childhood kung fu lessons, when I’d first learned how to clear my mind through meditation. Then, slowly, I crawled out of the doldrums and began a daily routine of meditating, working out, and studying vigorously, breaking the material I needed to know for the test into digestible parts for each study session. I shut out the negative thoughts and reassured myself several times a day that I was smart enough to become a doctor; I just kept repeating the words to myself until I really believed them. The second time around, I passed easily. The same routine helped me pass the next two parts of the state board exam on the first try.

  I shared with Rhenita the study routine that had been helpful to me, and the two of us met about once a week at the library, at Beth Israel, or at the medical school she attended. We discussed time management, outlined a plan of study, and stuck to it. We talked about the importance of her believing that she would get past this hurdle. When Rhenita took the exam a second time, she passed. Her victory felt almost as extraordinary to me as my own had. She now practices family medicine in New Jersey.

  Time and time again, I found myself drawn to help other smart and hardworking young people facing some kind of challenge to their dreams. I knew something about struggle. My own struggles—and finding a way to work through them—had taught me about fortitude and endurance.

  After I passed my exams, and just weeks before my medical school graduation, I thought I had survived the worst and was on my way to a rewarding career, then there I was again, sitting before a grim-faced dean with more bad news. None of the teaching hospitals I had applied to had chosen me for their residency programs. Like every other medical student about to graduate into the real world, I had researched the teaching hospitals that offered residencies in my desired specialty (emergency medicine) and identified the places where I wanted to work. I’d sent out forty applications, and thirty hospitals had responded, inviting me for an interview. I’d narrowed that list to a more manageable eighteen and spent every penny I had traveling to interviews in New Jersey, New York, Washing
ton, D.C., and Maryland, as well as in Atlanta, Cleveland, Chicago, and Philadelphia. I couldn’t afford to take the train or plane to most places, so I drove to the East Coast hospitals and stayed mostly with relatives, friends, and friends of friends. I’d even schlepped through snowstorms to get to a couple of the appointments. I had just one suit, a cheap but stylish dark blue one that I’d picked up at a discount store, but I made sure it was clean for every interview. I dressed it up with a nice shirt—sky blue one time, baby blue the next. When I ranked my top choices in the National Resident Matching Program’s computerized database, I was sure that at least one of my favored hospitals on the East Coast would choose me, too. But when the hospitals entered their chosen candidates into the same database, and the computer spit out the matches linking the students and hospitals, none of the hospitals on my list had chosen me. Once again, I was devastated and filled with self-doubt.

  Emergency medicine is a super-competitive specialty with far more qualified applicants than slots, but I had done well academically. I couldn’t help wondering: What’s wrong with me? I will never know for sure why I didn’t match, but my medical school advisers suggested that my response during a particular part of the interview certainly hadn’t helped my chances; sometimes, one small detail can separate two good candidates. When questioners had asked me what I wanted to do for extracurricular activity, I’d talked about my desire to do community service. I saw more than a few puzzled looks as I sought feebly to explain the connection to medicine. I may have made a stronger impression, my advisers suggested, if I’d expressed an interest in taking classes or seminars exploring the latest in EKG or ultrasound technology, the merger of the Internet and medicine, or methods to increase patient satisfaction—all popular areas of study.

  In the last-minute scramble to land a residency, I took the dean’s advice and applied for a position in the more expansive field of internal medicine. I hastily accepted an offer from the University of Maryland. It was a reputable program, but I had zero interest in internal medicine. My fate seemed sealed, and I was miserable. I just kept thinking that there had to be another option, another emergency medicine residency program out there somewhere. There was no way I had come this far to be this miserable. I asked myself repeatedly: Where do you want to be? Where would you have the best chance to shine?

  That’s how I ended up a few weeks later doing another computer search of emergency medicine residency programs in New Jersey. Suddenly, Beth Israel popped up on my screen. It was the first time in all of my research that the program had surfaced. Excitement shot through me, renewing the hope that had disappeared weeks earlier. The website showed that each of the hospital’s six residency slots was filled, but I didn’t care. I had to know more. When I called and introduced myself, Jacquie Johnson, the hospital’s residency coordinator, explained that the residency program had been revamped, expanded, and newly advertised, which was why it hadn’t shown up in any of my previous searches. By the way, she added, the website had not yet been updated, and the expansion had created two additional slots in emergency medicine. I could hardly believe my ears. God had opened up the heavens and dropped this starving dog a bone. I sank my teeth in and ran with it. I immediately faxed my application and followed up with a telephone call. I got a good vibe from Jacquie. She seemed impressed that I’d grown up in Newark, and we clicked over the phone. When she told me that she would make sure to put my information into the right hands, I believed her. Sure enough, within just a few days, I was invited for an interview at the hospital.

  There was something about being home again for the interview that restored my confidence. I knew this place. I knew the people. I’d sat in the same waiting room outside the E.R. at Beth Israel many times as a kid when child’s play got too rough and ended in a broken bone or a gash. When the administrator showing me around the hospital opened the doors to the emergency room, I got goose bumps. This was it. Somehow, I just knew. Unlike the other interviews when I’d stumbled over my words and my insides had felt like a bowl of quivering Jell-O, I was sure that Beth Israel was the place for me. I looked my interviewers in their eyes and told them what my heart was telling me: This was where I wanted to be, where I belonged and felt confident I could thrive. After a second interview, I got an offer, and against the advice of my medical school advisers, I talked my way out of the agreement with the University of Maryland. Then, with deep gratitude, I headed home to start my career. The community service that I’d tried to make sense of in all those failed interviews made sense here. This was my community, a community filled with good kids who never make the news—kids like Kenny Malique Bazemore.

  I met Malique in 2003 at a book signing event near Newark after the paperback release of The Pact. During the question-and-answer segment, his mother, Monica Bazemore, rose from her seat in the crowded bookstore. “I’m here because of what you’ve done for my son,” she said, as her son, then ten, sat beside her and blushed. She explained that Malique had reminded her every day all week about the book event and had even brought pen and paper to take notes. At their home in Bloomfield, New Jersey, he had removed the sports posters on his bedroom wall and replaced them with photos of Rameck, George, and me that he had clipped from magazines. Monica asked for a few words of encouragement for Malique, but George, Rameck, and I were so touched and impressed that we got to know him and became like his big brothers. We brought him along to community events and introduced him to some of the celebrities we met, including radio host Wendy Williams and superstar Bill Cosby.

  Malique was small for his age, wore glasses, and had an innocent face and an easy, shy smile. The book had inspired him to want to become a doctor, his mother said. I learned later that part of the reason he wanted to pursue a medical career was to find a cure for his then five-year-old sister, Kennedy, who had been born with a severe and rare disease of the central nervous system. Easily identified by a large mole that had grown down her face, the disease caused facial deformities and left Kennedy unable to walk, talk, or do anything for herself. After her birth, the children’s father had left the family, staying in touch only sporadically, so Monica was raising both of them alone. Even at age ten, Malique had learned to help take care of his sister, handling such medical tasks as suctioning fluid from her breathing tube.

  In some ways, Malique reminded me so much of myself. When I was in medical school, my desire to ease my sister Fellease’s suffering from AIDS motivated me through some of my darkest days. I wanted to help him achieve his dreams. The two of us talked on the phone regularly, hung out when we could, and his mom didn’t hesitate to call when he needed a little male guidance.

  Once, she emailed and asked me to talk to Malique after he got into trouble at school for being disruptive in class. The next time I saw Malique, we talked about it. He told me that he was bored and that his antics—laughing and talking loudly—hadn’t seemed like a big deal. I saw no need for a long speech. Malique was generally a serious kid who recognized the importance of excelling in school, keeping a clean record, and choosing his friends wisely. I just listened and told him that acting like a clown wasn’t cool and that I expected more. I wanted to do for him what others had done for me: let him know that I cared, that my expectations for him were high, and that the easiest thing for him to do was behave. It was as simple as that. I knew he looked up to me and would try to meet my expectations.

  By his junior year in high school, Malique was struggling. His grades had slipped, and he was no longer sure he wanted to be a doctor or even go to college. I recognized his teenage angst and rebellion and stayed close. He called me often to express his frustrations or ask for advice, and I called, emailed, and texted regularly to check in with him. I also offered moral support when he decided that he wanted to reconnect with his father. Malique located his dad in Delaware, went to live with him in his junior year, and graduated from Glasgow High School. While there, he joined the Junior Air Force ROTC, which helped him regain the discipline, organization, and focu
s he needed to move confidently into his future. Malique now attends Delaware State University, where he is a movement science major (similar to sports science). Though he no longer wants to be a medical doctor, he is pursuing his dream to someday have a career in medicine. He hopes to be a physical therapist to help children with special needs—like his sister—and wounded soldiers.

  In my relationship with Malique and the others I mentored, I was the fortunate one. My life felt more meaningful every time I had a chance to spend time with a boy yearning for fatherly attention and affection, or to help piece together the shattered confidence of a medical student who had failed her board exams, or to offer hope to a mother raising children alone in a tough city. In them, I saw the huge difference that one person can make in another’s life. I could offer healing and perhaps even help save lives (and dreams) beyond the emergency room. Maybe inspiring a kid to go to college or to get serious about school could even lessen the chances that I’d see him down the road in the emergency room with a bullet in him. Inspiring kids to dream bigger than what they could see was exactly our hope when George, Rameck, and I established The Three Doctors Foundation in April 2000. When the three of us returned home to Newark-area hospitals for our residencies, newspaper stories about the friendship that had helped three poor inner-city boys become doctors resulted in speaking invitations throughout the region. We were giddy for the opportunity to share our story, and rather unexpectedly we amassed about $3,000 in gifts from those engagements. That was a lot of cash to us. I had returned to Newark with less than $30 to my name and, despite being a doctor, was still trying to get past living from paycheck to paycheck. But each of us felt a tremendous need to use the money to create something that would benefit the community. Many people had given of their time and resources to us along our journey, and we wanted to give some of it back, even though we didn’t know if we’d ever have that kind of extra cash again.