MINISTER of Health Dr Fenton Ferguson is well-known for his strong support of education within his St Thomas East constituency and beyond.

However, one of the most impressive stories of his benevolence has resulted in a doctor being created, and a chain reaction which has seen the beneficiaries, in turn, adopting other needy youngsters and helping them to become doctors as well.

The story of Lincoln Ferguson is unique. Born Lincoln McBeth, he struggled through poverty before meeting Fenton Ferguson, who paved the way for him to become a prominent doctor in New York, USA.

In turn, Lincoln did the same for another youngster, who is now seeking to maintain the tradition with a generous talent search of his own.

In addition, another young man is being groomed by Lincoln as he, too, prepares to enter medical school.

A graduate of the University of the West Indies medical school, Lincoln went on to do a post-graduate degree in paediatrics at Howard University, and a Master’s Degree in public health at Johns Hopkins University. He is now at South Nassau Communities Hospital as director for the paediatric emergency room.

Originally from Bath in Eastern St Thomas, Lincoln moved to Yallahs in the west of the parish due to economic circumstances.

He was enrolled at Morant Bay High School and was considered the student with the worst attendance record, caused by his family’s inability to afford school.

Inadequate books, clothing and lack of bus fare and lunch money were only a few of the problems that he faced while attending Morant Bay High in the 1980s. Most days he did not have lunch, and often had only one-way bus fare to school.

To compound his problems, Lincoln’s biological father died when he was six, forcing him to live with his grandmother and two brothers, as his mother could not afford to care for them.

But although he had such a poor attendance record, Lincoln always scored among the top five of the school, which teachers found puzzling as he had no books.

The situation forced him to become a “project” of the school’s then guidance counsellor Lucille Higgins, who would visit him in Yallahs if he missed school for two weeks or more, which was customary at the time. Higgins, he said, would always try to encourage him to attend school.

So when Fenton Ferguson, fresh out of Howard University dental school, decided to set up a practice in Morant Bay, it created an opening for young Lincoln.

“When my father came to St Thomas as a dentist, the year before I went to live with him he had reached out to the school to say he wanted to help a student. However, for that entire year when I was struggling, the school did not refer me to him,” Lincoln told the Jamaica Observer during an interview while he visited Jamaica for Christmas.

“Eventually, one day I went by Mrs Higgins to get some lunch assistance and she said to me ‘there is a dentist in Morant Bay who had asked about a student. I am going to call him, but I think you should stop by his office after school.’ So that’s how that started. I went to his office in Morant Bay and surprising to me, he was 28 years old, but just his maturity level was amazing,” Lincoln told the Jamaica Observer.

“The first thing he asked me was if I had all the options in the world, what would I want, career-wise, so I told him I wanted to become a doctor and he was very excited about that. He said he would give me financial assistance to attend school and I should come to his office every Tuesday and collect my lunch money and bus fare for school,” Lincoln said.

The Morant Bay student collected his lunch money and bus fare “for a couple of months”, but Fenton Ferguson saw the need for him to be closer to the youngster.

“The next time I went to Fenton he said ‘you know, I don’t think that this thing is working the way I want it to work. I am giving you the assistance, but I don’t know how many facilities you have in terms of study and I don’t know how much work you are putting in. I think that it would be a better deal if you come and live with me’,” Lincoln related.

He told his mother that ‘the dentist’ wanted him to live with him but he would not go, as he was scared. The youngster did not visit Ferguson’s practice for several weeks, but being in a financial bind and very close to dropping out of school again, he decided to give relocation a try, a move he said was one of the best things that he had ever done, as he had vowed to return to his original home if he were not comfortable with the shift.

So, armed with his “little belongings” Lincoln relocated to Ferguson’s house in Morant Bay where he was integrated into a family that included Ferguson’s then wife, and son, Kareem, who was two years old at the time.

“If I never met him within a two-week period I would have dropped out of school. I just could not financially afford to continue. I would have dropped out and hopefully with my ‘O’ level passes I would have got a job,” Lincoln said. “I had six ‘O’ levels at the time, and one of the reasons is when I was supposed to do ‘O’ levels I was supposed to do eight, but I could not afford to do any, and through a programme at the school they picked six and I had to drop two.”

From there he went to upper sixth form and taught at his alma mater for a year, followed by a one-year working stint at Scotiabank, Morant Bay.

“The bank was offering me positions because I was academically strong, especially in mathematics, but then my father insisted at that point that I should get out of the bank and go to university. I had done biology, physics and chemistry at ‘A’ level and he gave me an ultimatum that come September I had to be in university, so I went to University of the West Indies. I did the N2 and then you had to get straight ‘As’ to get into medical school so that’s what I did. My father used to send me to classes at EXED Community College to do some courses because sometimes Morant Bay didn’t have teachers to do some subjects, based on how the school was structured,” Lincoln said.

He was accepted at UWI Medical School in 1986 and graduated in the class of 1991. While a student, he changed his surname to Ferguson, “because I wanted to”, and informed Fenton about it. The dentist was “overjoyed” upon hearing the news, as he did not insist on anything like that.

Following internship at Spanish Town Hospital, Kingston Public Hospital and the Comprehensive Health Centre, Lincoln went to Princess Margaret Hospital to join Dr Cecil Batchelor as the only functioning doctors there at the time.

Marriage beckoned, and soon Lincoln would take Patrice as his lifelong companion.

The Princess Margaret Hospital experience soon allowed him to come in contact with Kevin Rowe, whom he eventually adopted.

“Medically, I used to take care of the guidance counsellor who recommended me to my father, so she called me one evening and said ‘Lincoln, there is a boy who comes to school very poorly and he reminds me so much of you.’

“She had retired from school the year before and she was worried, as she didn’t know what happened to him (Rowe), and whether or not he was coming to school. She had called the school many times and could not get any information on him, so she and I went to Spring Garden, which was the last place that she remembered he was living at the time. We searched the whole place until close to nightfall and could not get any information, when somebody said there is a little old lady who lives down the hill. It turned out that she was the grandmother, and Kevin was living with her for sometime and then he went to Duhaney Pen to stay with his mother,” Lincoln recalled.

“Another day I picked her up again and went down to Duhaney Pen where I met Kevin. His mother came out and she was actually somebody whose baby I had delivered at hospital some months before.

“Kevin was basically in the same situation that I was, so I started doing the same thing. I worked at the hospital and I had a private practice that I shared with Dr Rhodd, so I asked Kevin to come by and get his money for school. Dr Batchelor and I were the only two doctors at the hospital at the time and I lived at the doctor’s quarters, so I did the same thing and felt the same way like my father. Kevin came to stay with me, and then I got married and subsequently had to migrate, because my wife was at dental school at Howard University,” Lincoln told the Sunday Observer.

When Lincoln took Kevin under his care, the youngster was in fourth form and he was doing subjects like shorthand, typing, and principles of business. But Kevin wanted to do medicine. However, he had no exposure to science subjects like chemistry and physics which he would need to enter the Faculty of Medical Sciences.

Kevin repeated fourth form on Lincoln’s request. He pursued the science subjects, and shifted from Morant Bay High to Wolmer’s Boys’ School for sixth form, where he finished as one of the top performers in ‘A’ levels.

“He followed my footsteps exactly, where he did the N2, did extremely well and went into medicine. He now has a practice in Brown’s Town and one in Runaway Bay,” Lincoln explained.

Now, Dr Kevin Rowe is in the process of running with the support baton. He has already assisted students with their education and intends to keep the tradition going, what with his work through the prison service, and teaching mathematics and other subjects.

“He had me in tears on Christmas Day, because he said with my wife and I, he could not have better parents,” Lincoln said.

“My wife, Dr Patrice Ferguson, a Kingston girl, did dentistry. She is an amazing lady, amazing mother. We took on Kevin and some years ago we took on another kid — Nicholas Allen. She loves them, treats them well, she keeps me grounded and if I slip up on something she makes sure that I treat them no different than our two genetic kids.

“Our second son, Phillip, just turned 20. He is in his third year at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) doing engineering. Our daughter Shenice is 16. She is in her final year at high school and she starts Harvard in September… she got in early to do medicine. Nicholas Allen attended university in Jamaica and did a degree in economics and maths. He is a certified teacher and former student of Morant Bay High School, which he, too, attended under similar circumstances, and is now preparing to go to medical school.

“All of this comes down to the opportunity that I got from Fenton. It’s not just the opportunity and the financial help… it’s the love, it’s the mentorship, it’s the nurturing and I could not have asked for a better father,” Lincoln said.

Lincoln is still scanning the Jamaican landscape to see how he can continue to assist others in need.

“I am always looking. In fact, there is a kid at university now — he went to Happy Grove High School, then he went to Camperdown and did very well and sat at home for a full year with his CAPE and his CSEC subjects,” Lincoln said.

“I spoke to him and encouraged him to go to university. He felt it wasn’t possible and I pushed him. He said he didn’t have anybody to borrow money from, nobody to sign for him, so he eventually took student’s loan, which doesn’t pay for his boarding, so every month I pay for his boarding,” Lincoln added.

“It’s my father’s influence that inspires me. I could not ask for a better role model, I couldn’t ask for a better mentor. I see how he treats the poor, how he cares, and this is a deep-seated care that has nothing to do with politics, because even when he took me, in those days I used to see so many people that he had been reaching out to out of his pocket, and at that time there was no inkling of him going into politics, because here we are talking about 1981. He never went into politics until 1993. Help for me had nothing to do with politics. That was just the make of the man,” Lincoln said.

Lincoln’s biological mother died in 2000. She lived long enough to see the benefit of Fenton Ferguson’s work on her son, and because of what the noted dentist did, Lincoln was able to help his siblings through university to get their degrees. One of his biological brothers is now at Howard University finishing his doctor of pharmacy degree.

“All of that help was made possible because of this one move. I think in Jamaica as a country, if each person can afford it, and can help one youngster… just one with ability, it would be great, but it has to be a wholehearted help. It’s not just about giving them a money — that doesn’t work well, it needs role models, it needs the mentoring and it needs the guidance. If you can do that and back it up with some financial help, and I think that a lot of Jamaicans can do that if they really want to, in the long term it would make a significant difference in the society,” Lincoln argued.

“It just amazes me that Fenton could have made that decision at the time and the level of maturity he showed. I was 15 at the time. And I basically came back and did the same thing, because Kevin was at that age when I took him,” Lincoln told the Sunday Observer.

“It was a 13-year age difference between Fenton and I, and Kevin and myself, so 13 is really not a bad luck number. When I did, it at least I had a model before, but for Fenton to step out and do that shows what kind of man he is. And he has not let up. He has been there for me for everything — all of my graduations, everything that I have achieved in America, he is there, and for the kids it’s the same way. My daughter has graduation this year and he’s gonna be there unless something major happens.

“Shenice is going to the number one college in the world, and Phillip is going to the number two. He, too, got into Harvard, but it’s just that he chose MIT because he is doing engineering and MIT is the top engineering college. All of that came from what my father did and that is the true man,” Lincoln said.

For Lincoln, what makes him happy as well is how Kevin has been able to run two practices, and a pharmacy, his work in the prison system, and how he treats people with respect and loves them.

The input of his wife is also crucial in maintaining a solid family mix, especially in the area of education and motherhood.

“We are on the same page. In fact, she is the one who puts forward the big suggestions. Even the other day when Nicholas needed a car, she said ‘we need to assist him in getting the car’. She asked me what would I have done if it were Phillip or Shenice who needed the car. That’s how she holds me accountable, so there is no discrimination. She is an amazing person,” he said of the former Queen’s High school student.