We Beat the Street

April 4, 2005
The authors of the adult bestseller The Pact
here redirect their story for a younger audience. The three young doctors from Newark, N.J., reflect upon the seminal moments, people and relationships from early childhood to graduation that led them to choose medicine over the street (even though the boys " even know anybody who went to college"). Each chapter begins with a childhood incident, followed by the doctor's narrative about what that event meant to his future. The authors honestly portray both their successes and failures, including flirting with crime. In one, Rameck Hunt, then in 11th grade, and some old friends (whom his mother called "thugs") beat a homeless man for smoking on school property, until he was critically injured; after Rameck's release from a weekend in a detention center, he resolves to focus on his future. George Jenkins's memory of his first trip to the dentist seeds the early passion that would grow into his own vocation in dentistry. The doctors show how their pact to stick together and support each other through college and medical school helped them achieve their goals. Throughout, the three stay true to themselves, such as when, in a summer pre-med program at Seton Hall, Sampson Davis defends wearing baggy jeans and sweats in a hospital: "If I live in the hood, and I work in the hood, then my patients will think I'm dressed appropriately, don't you think?" Readers searching for role models should find much to cheer and emulate here. Ages 10-up.