Pedro Jose Greer (PG): I’d just started my internship, and I was in the ICU and there was a man dying of tuberculosis. He had a little wrist band that had his name and it said, uhhh no address. I knew that this man had at the very least parents, maybe siblings, a spouse. And we went out to try and find his family in Miami. There was only two or three shelters. And what I saw was a little window into this world of poverty that existed in my backyard that I didn’t even know was there. We went out under the bridges. Started seeing patients on Tuesday nights.

Janus Greer (JG): Well I remember when you first came home to tell me about the homeless. I was shocked because we live in a suburb and unless you came downtown, you didn’t see it. (PG: Not at all) It wasn’t a reality.

PG: You have to love to serve. You gotta love people. You have to hate suffering. You have to realize that, no matter how many hours you work in the hospital, you get to go home at night. Somebody there doesn’t. That’s what medicine is.

One day I went to the cinic. It was lunchtime and it was a mother and she had three of her kids from the Salvation Army. And her youngest son, I guess, about six years old, had a sweet smile…and uhh, I handed him my sandwich. And the kid took the sandwich out of the bag, unwrapped it, broke it in half, took a couple of bites and then stuck it back in the wrapper. And I couldn’t figure out why the kid was doing that. And I asked the kid, ”Why’d you do that?” And the little boy just looked up at me and said, ”It’s for my brother.” And that was probably one of the most important lessons I ever learned. That a six year old homeless child, is teaching us what we’re all supposed to do. Think about somebody else.