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Sampson Davis, M.D.      

E.R. Physician, Inspirational Speaker, Bestselling Author & TV Personality

Dr. Sampson Davis was raised as the fifth of six children in Newark, one of New Jersey’s poorest cities. As a child Dr. Davis grew-up in cramped living quarters, surrounded by fragmented families, crime, and drugs. Still, he was a good student, able to strike the fragile balance between being smart yet socially acceptable on the streets. It was this combination of skills, Dr. Davis says, that were most critical to his survival.

While attending University High School in Newark, Dr. Davis met Dr. Rameck Hunt and Dr. George Jenkins, two fellow students who together made a promise to become doctors. Dr. Davis and his two childhood friends each successfully fulfilled their pact and today Dr. Davis is a board certified Emergency Medicine Physician.

In May 2018, Dr. Davis along with Sharlee Jeter co-authored his newest book, “The STUFF: Unlock Your Power to Overcome Challenges, Soar, and Succeed.” The STUFF offers 11 core elements to a maximized you through sharing poignant, inspiring stories of everyday individuals who fought through impossible life defining circumstances, overpowered and succeeded. Through mastering the 11 elements in the book, Davis believes we all can live our best STUFF.

Dr. Davis has appeared on numerous talk and radio shows including Oprah, Dr. Oz, The Today Show, The View, CBS This Morning, Kelly and Mark, PBS News Hour, Anderson Cooper 360 and NPR as well as print publications including but not limited to People, O Magazine, Reader’s Digest, Washington Post, NY Times, USA Today, Parade and Black Enterprise.

Ms. Winfrey delivered the highest honor naming Dr. Davis, “One of The Premiere Role Models of the World”.

Dr. Davis was honored in 2000 with the Essence Lifetime Achievement Award and also named one of their forty most inspirational African Americans in the country. He is the youngest physician to receive the National Medical Association’s highest honor, The Scroll of Merit, and was previously honored on national television with the 2009 BET Awards. In 2021, Dr. Davis was named Seton Hall University Alumnus of the Year.

Today, Dr. Davis spends his time practicing medicine and traveling the country delivering keynote speeches with timely messages. Dr. Davis believes it is important to give education a sense of style and fashion. To glorify and glamorize education is the key. A concrete face must be present that all individuals across America can draw inspiration from. Dr. Davis considers his 3 Ds, Dedication, Determination and Discipline, as the necessary ingredients to success.

Graduating with honors, Dr. Davis received his bachelor’s degree from Seton Hall University, his medical degree from Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and completed his residency in Emergency Medicine at the same hospital where he was born, Newark Beth Israel Medical Center.

Dr. Davis is an Emergency Medicine Physician at several New Jersey hospitals as well a Medical Director for several urgent care centers and substance abuse facilities throughout the country. Dr. Davis continues to serve as a sought-after keynote speaker for many organizations and institutions. He has been a weekly correspondent on the Tom Joyner Morning Show and a frequent guest on CNN, Today Show, Kelly and Mark and Dr. Oz where he focuses on prevalent and lifesaving medical topics. Dr. Davis is a NY Times best-selling author and has co-authored The Pact, We Beat the Street and The Bond. In 2013, Dr. Davis released “Living and Dying in Brick City – An ER Doctor Returns Home.” Brick City highlights Dr. Davis’ experiences as an ER physician and offers real detailed emergency medicine encounters along with preventative guidance to encourage and support healthier communities across the nation.

In 2000, during his residency, Dr. Davis along with his two best friends felt the burning need to give back and created The Three Doctors Foundation (www.threedoctorsfoundation.org). Operating on the premise of H.E.L.M. (health, education, leadership and mentoring), their non-profit organization offers a series of free public programs to communities throughout the calendar year.

Speech Topics

Know Who You Are and Always Give Back

Regardless of life circumstances, Dr. Sampson Davis believes wholeheartedly we all have something to give. Everything from paying a kind word on an elevator ride to saying good morning to a stranger, we have something to offer. This process of giving back not only impacts the person receiving the gift but also allows you, as the giver, to feel good about yourself, about life. It is vital to give back. It is one of life’s most precious gifts that often goes unused because so many of us don’t give it an opportunity. In the process of helping someone else, you may change your own life in redefining your purpose. Further, Dr. Davis believes it is important to know who you are as an individual. Believe in yourself and stand firm in defining yourself. Not everyone will embrace who you are and that is okay. We call such individuals “haters” and they are extremely successful at their job of hating. So allow haters to hate while you, as a “believer,” believes.

The Sports Scholar

It this speech, Dr. Sampson Davis speaks about the importance of staying active. You must always keep moving. In life, aim to never retire; rather, switch gears into another pursuit of passion. As a teenager, Dr. Davis played high school baseball and even had visions of a professional sports career. It was the adrenaline of sports that helped his academics. The energy and excitement after exercising or taking part in sports-related activities release happy hormones from the brain known as endorphins. It is the body endorphins that helped drive Dr. Davis in his academics by allowing him to focus and push through long hours of studying. It is important to have balance in life. Playing sports and exercising is fun; not only do you gain the benefit of exercising from a healthy view point but the activity also spills over into other sectors of life. In this case, sports enabled Dr. Davis to focus more on his academics. Sports also kept him busy during tempting days of growing up on the streets of Newark. Never want a youth or an adult to sit idle.

I Have a Dream

Dr. Sampson Davis strongly believes we all have a dream. But what happens when the dream is interrupted or comes to a halt. How does one bounce back? How does one believe it is possible to achieve the unimaginable? In this speech, Dr. Davis will inspire all to remain vigilant in the pursuit of their dreams. Giving up is not an option. Work with what you have in place and believe you can make it happen. Dr. Davis will share his obstacles and pitfalls and how he never allowed his dream to be deferred even when faced with sure defeat. He will share the struggles he faced along the way. A college professor once told him to switch majors and that he wasn’t cut out to be a doctor. He dealt with personal tragedies in his family, from addiction to watching his sister lose her life to a health battle. Dr. Davis remained firm in knowing he could achieve success and it was his sister’s fight for life that inspired him to keep pushing.

Making the Case for the Affordable Care Act (ACA): An ER Doctor’s Perspective

Through riveting personal and medical stories, Dr. Sampson Davis provides a never-before-seen look at health care in America, presenting not only the issues but also the complicated lives behind the statistics. Dr. Davis also looks at the ACA—how it may draw more doctors and nurses to return to abandoned areas of America, while technical barriers keep many patients form even signing up. Dr. Davis shares stories about the health care industry and how it personally affected his family. His father, diagnosed with prostate cancer and Alzheimer’s, turned to him to guide him through the stages of the health care system.

The Power of Education—Investing in Your Most Precious Commodity

As the first member in his family to attend college, Dr. Sampson Davis speaks candidly about how education saved his life. Aiming to become “the Michael Jordan of education,” Dr. Davis inspires high school, college and graduate students alike to remain steadfast in their pursuit of academics. Referencing stories from his best-selling books "The Pact," "The Bond" and "We Beat the Street," Dr. Davis will inspire all students in their pursuit of academic achievement. His blueprint toward higher education has served as a resource for community-wide reads, grammar school and high school assemblies, college first year experience lectures, college-themed talks and commencement speeches.

The Pact

Success—what does it look like? How does one achieve it? Dr. Sampson Davis speaks adamantly about success. The first necessary step is to seek out like-minded friends to form a pact. When pursuing a goal, it is vital to have a team approach. This solidarity helps to drive you and keep one motivated especially during moments where you want to give up. We all need a muse. Show me a successful person and I will show you his successful circle. The pact approach is what saved Dr. Davis’ life, when he and his two friends made a promise to each other to become doctors. This oath pushed him beyond his conceivable limits. He never realized he could reach such heights but knowing he was going to be held accountable served as motivation. Simply, he didn’t want to disappoint his two friends. If we are able to form pacts across the country towards a common goal, then we can begin to achieve insurmountable success. His story of overcoming unfathomable odds is chronicled in his New York Times best seller "The Pact."

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Brick City

In this motivational speech, Dr. Sampson Davis speaks about growing up in one of New Jersey’s poorest cities, and his journey toward becoming an emergency medicine physician. With stories shared from his latest book, Living and Dying in Brick City, Dr. Davis explains how his city earned its nickname—Brick City. It is the grit and toughness of Newark that allows such a moniker to be born. His story is an inspiring one filled with dramatic details and anecdotes.

He also explains how these issues complicate healthy life options that are further strained by an undersupply of health care providers and facilities.

The Medical Gap

The Future of Medical Care

Your Health Matters

Dr. Davis speaks on heath issues including high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, obesity (childhood) and what you need to know and do when it comes to your health. 1. Hypertension, the silent killer, requires daily medications along with life style changesdiet, exercise and stress release. 2. Diabetes affects more individuals today than our parents generation and for the first time our childrens life expectancy is projected to be shorter than ours. 3. Heart disease Do you know the five risk factors? Do you know your genetics? What you can do to minimize your risk along with knowing the signs of a heart attack. 4. Obesity the greatest threat to todays youth, threatening to cripple career progression and shorten life expectancy. Obesity is the giant elephant in the room that isnt going anywhere.

Nerd Today Boss Tomorrow

Often our youth are called Nerd for achieving academic success. Dr. Davis addresses this misconception directly encouraging youth to achieve academic excellence in pursuit of being called Boss tomorrow dispelling the negative connotation of the word Nerd.

Perseverance

Dr. Davis speaks candidly about never giving up on your dreams and pushing through insurmountable obstacles in achieving your goals. Erasing the No and elevating the Yes.

Preventing Gang Violence

Dr. Davis discuses his work directly with the Violence Prevention Institute of New Jersey focusing on gang violence and preventative medicine.

Life in the E.R.

Dr. Davis talks about medicine and his role in an inner city ER as the Assistant Medical Director of the Emergency Department at Raritan Bay Medical Center. He is the Vice President of Physician Recruitment for Physician Practice Enhancement.

Neccessary Ingredients: The Three D's

Dr. Davis considers his 3 DsDedication, Determination, and Discipline] as the necessary ingredients to success. When faced with challenges, the 3 Ds will prevail. It is clear that the compelling story of Dr. Davis contains a message that both young and old can relate to and benefit from.

Living and Dying in Brick City

Dr. Davis speaks about his own life and his journey, offering timely messages. Dr. Davis focuses often on courage courage to cope with lifes difficult circumstances, courage to set goals for yourself and most importantly, the courage to accept responsibility for achieving them. Dr. Davis notes that education saved his life and his continued pursuit of his goal to become the Michael Jordan of education in the hope that learning becomes a status symbol throughout all communities.

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