Dr. Pedro José Greer, the assistant dean of academic affairs at the Florida International University School of Medicine, will be one of 16 recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, to be awarded tomorrow by President Barack Obama at the White House.

An Aug. 10 White House press release notes that Greer is “the founder of Camillus Health Concern, an agency that provides medical care to over 10,000 homeless patients a year in the city of Miami. He is also the founder and medical director of the St. John Bosco Clinic which provides basic primary medical care to disadvantaged children and adults in the Little Havana community. He has been recognized by Presidents Clinton, Bush Sr., and Carter for his work with Miami’s poor. He is also the recipient of three papal medals as well as the prestigious MacArthur ‘genius grant.’”

The Miami Herald said this about Greer’s work, in a July 31 editorial:

A product of local Catholic schools, Dr. Greer practices what he was taught in the best tradition of that church: the corporal works of mercy. Among them: feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, harbor the harborless, visit the sick.