The Pact: Three Young Men Make a Promise and Fulfill a Dream

The journey to become a doctor is not an easy path for anyone, let alone for a young person growing up in a crime-ridden neighborhood surrounded by negative influences. Yet three best friends facing those exact challenges succeeded in obtaining medical degrees. How?

Drs. Sampson Davis, George Jenkins and Rameck Hunt met as students in Newark, New Jersey. Told in alternating voices in each chapter, each of the three shares his story with the reader from childhood to the present (as of 2002, the time of publication). While each man has a different story to tell (one was arrested and spent time in juvenile detention, another managed to stay out of fights and avoid conflict throughout his childhood), the common thread is that they worked incredibly hard throughout high school, college and medical school to get to where they are now. Each reached points where he felt he might give up -- whether it was problems in his family, academic failure, financial hardships or just plain stress, and his friends were there to support him and encourage him to get back on track. This message is an important one for our students. Young people are frequently lectured on the negative effects of peer pressure and how destructive it can be to “hang out with the wrong crowd.” This memoir sheds light on the flip side of that pressure, and the opportunities that come from surrounding oneself with positive thinkers and ambitious, hard-working friends.  --Anja Kennedy

Davis, Sampson, George Jenkins, and Rameck Hunt.  The Pact: Three Young Men Make a Promise and Fulfill a Dream.  New York: Penguin.  2002.  Print.