SID: Hello, Sid Roth your investigative reporter here with Dr. David Remedios. What happens when a medical doctor hears God’s voice so clearly and combines the best of medical surgery and the best of hearing God’s voice? David, that is natural. I think everything else is a stab in the dark.
DAVID: Thank you.
SID: Every time I look at you David, I think about where you are right now and where you came from. Tell us exactly your education from medical school on.
DAVID: Well I went to New York University School of Medicine and then I went after that to Mayo College of Medicine and then to University of South Florida and after that I joined the military and participated in the first Gulf War. So I was stationed in Alexandria Louisiana.
SID: And you also, he lectures on vascular surgery. This man is a very prominent vascular surgeon. But the greatest miracle, as far as I’m concerned, is as a teenager he found himself homeless on the streets of New York City. Why were you homeless?
DAVID: Well it was actually secondary to my parents having split, and certainly at that point, with my father in particular. I was the oldest of six children, there was obviously a case of spousal abuse going on, and it was one of the most difficult things, particularly being the oldest child. And there’s a protective instinct to protect your mother and obviously I honored my parents regardless of what happened so I’m not one of those parent bashers. I say this truly because this is a fact and with some pain in my heart. But still the facts are the facts. And so, caught in the middle of them obviously, there was one point where I thought my father literally was going to kill me so at that point I ran and I ran and I ran. And after I ran, I don’t know, 15 or 20 blocks, probably more, I collapsed on the pavement and I began to laugh and cry at the same time because I realized my dad was not after me to kill me after all. And that’s where it all began.
SID: But how do you survive on the streets of New York City? How much money did you have?
DAVID: None.
SID: None?
DAVID: I just had my shoes and pants and shirt.
SID: But you had something more valuable than money. You had a relationship with God. You literally at that point began to hear God’s voice. Tell me how you survived on those streets.
DAVID: Literally, it was a life of prayer. I would go to all night prayer meetings. It was also, literally there were times when literally my life depended on it. In particular there was one time when these two huge guys, they seemed like eight or nine feet tall when in fact they probably were, I was short I guess. But I was literally held up and they put a knife right here on my throat, which that is not that infrequent in that part of New York City so I’m not saying anything extraordinary. This happens to a lot of people and a lot of people do lose their life under these conditions. And I said “Well Lord, what do I do now?” I just looked and there were hundreds of people walking down the street as if nothing’s happening. And the Lord said “Just yell out ‘Dad!’” So I looked and I just said “Dad!” As soon as I said that they dropped me and I ran and I ran and I hid in a store and I was shaking and shivering. And the Lord saved my life.
SID: But that wasn’t an exception. I mean I would think you would probably, every day…
DAVID: Yeah every day. It’s just things at that point, I took for granted. I was just in a survival mode.
SID: How did you eat?
DAVID: There were different people in the church that would call me up to eat; they would share with me what they had. Wherever I ended up God always provided food. There was an uncle that sometimes provided for me. There was a period of time where a lady from the church who has seven kids took me in for a while. There was another lady. I was actually going to Bible school at this young age, believe it or not.
SID: My goodness.
DAVID: God always provided.
SID: Listen: homeless, penniless, no food, and he ends up being a renowned vascular surgeon. But you learned something. As bad as it was, you learned something. You learned that you can trust God. You can trust His voice. Tell me about the very worst time that you were practicing surgery, the worst case you can remember. Now I don’t think anyone’s ever asked you that.
DAVID: Not really, but honestly, professionally, emotionally, it’s something I’d rather not remember. But it seems that in that point of greatest vulnerability is where God seems to do His best work. And in our weakness we’re made strong. So I recall there was a patient I had operated on, a very prominent man in my city, and I had done a colon anastomosis and within two and a half weeks he had gone into shock, septic shock, and he was dying. And it was about 10 o’clock that night and there were two pastors in my house and several people. We were just having a prayer meeting. I get called into the emergency room and so I go in and I looked and his pressure’s dropping. I know that he’s dying. I need to go in and to explore him. And obviously I don’t want to go back into that abdomen because the first surgery was very difficult to begin with. Well, long story short, I begin and I’m operating. I begin about 10 or 11 o’clock that night; I’m operating the whole night straight.
SID: My goodness.
DAVID: Until 6 o’clock. And I’m sure, surgeons listening to me out there, you’ve probably had a similar case and this is no exception. We’ve all had cases like that if you’re in surgery long enough. So the more I operated, the bowel was literally falling apart, it’s difficult for me to talk about obviously, and the more I try to put things together, the bowel was so fragile it was literally falling apart and there was puss everywhere. And it got to the point literally the anesthesiologist gave up, they were humming, you know, even the other surgeon across the table from me had given up and he was like “Ok, well…” It was like people were going through the motions and that’s a very disheartening thing. It’s very disheartening.
SID: Sure, you want your patient to live.
DAVID: Absolutely. And I love this man. I love my patients. It’s a calling. It’s much more than a profession. You want your patients to do well. I don’t know any doctor that doesn’t. And so at that point I kept praying but everybody around me seemed to be giving up and I remember on my way home, as soon as I finished, I did what I could do, I finished the case, and it literally did not look good at all; say probably 95 percent chance of not surviving or better. And so I went home and I’ve never wept like this Sid, never in my life have I wept like this. I wept and wept. I don’t know how I even saw the road after not sleeping all night. I got home, my wife was making coffee, and she looked at me and I threw myself in her arms and I wept and I wept.
SID: So I guess he died?
DAVID: No.
SID: No? What happened?
DAVID: He didn’t die. Well, he survived.
SID: He survived? We’ll be right back after this word. I know you’re not going anywhere.