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Collaborations of the Heart:Cardiology Research
In the Community
| Dental Faculty Member Offers Underprivileged Kids a Strong Hand |
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Growing up with a single mother who often worked two jobs to support her two sons in a neighborhood steeped in negativity and despair was not an auspicious beginning for an ambitious child. At the time, Dr. Jenkins said he had one goal – to get out. And get out he did, with help from two friends.
Early on, George Jenkins and his two best friends, Sampson Davis and Rameck Hunt, made a pact: They would finish high school, go to college, and on to medical and dental school. They did just that – Dr. Jenkins graduated from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and Drs. Davis and Hunt from the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Today, Dr. Davis is an emergency medicine physician at St. Michael’s Medical Center and Raritan Bay Medical Center in New Jersey and Dr. Hunt is an internist at University Medical Center at Princeton and an assistant professor of medicine at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
But instead of moving out of town and never looking back, the three men decided they would not abandon their roots. They created the Three Doctors Foundation, an organization that helps young people who face many of the same challenges they did. They have also written about their lives in several books – “The Pact,” “We Beat the Streets,” and the latest, “The Bond,” about the responsibilities of fatherhood.
Their experience with the power of friendship made the concept of a “positive peer network” the basis of their work. Each year, the friends host a series of events in community centers in struggling areas to convey their story to young people, hoping to inspire in them a drive to succeed. Each event involves the whole community – children, parents, teachers, and professionals – and always focuses on health, education, leadership, and mentoring. The foundation has provided numerous scholarships to New Jersey students, an initiative it hopes to expand in coming years.
Kenneth Bazemore, a 13-year-old from New Jersey, exemplifies the doctors’ mission. Involved with the organization since 2003, he plans to become a physician with help and guidance from the three doctors. “We’re giving Kenneth all the information and resources he needs to get into college, and on through med school,” Dr. Jenkins says.
Dr. Jenkins’ conviction that one must give back to the community led to his decision to work at the Thelma Adair Davidson Medical & Dental Center in Harlem. “I could have chosen other possibilities that perhaps might have been more ‘fun’ than working for an underserved community, but my heart was in this,” he says.
For more information about the Three Doctors Foundation, visit www.threedoctors.com
