South Florida PBS Presents
Meet 101-Year-Old Doctor Gladys Lopez
Special | 4m 37sVideo has Closed Captions
An avid reader, traveler and doctor, Gladys Lopez has lived many lives in many places.
An avid reader, traveler and doctor, Gladys Lopez has lived many lives in many places. Now at 101 years old, her zest for life is unshakeable. She loves to dance, read and make friends at Easterseals South Florida. Her granddaughters, Elizabeth and Barbara, talk about Gladys’ amazing medical career and her lifelong desire to help humanity.
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South Florida PBS Presents is a local public television program presented by WPBT
South Florida PBS Presents
Meet 101-Year-Old Doctor Gladys Lopez
Special | 4m 37sVideo has Closed Captions
An avid reader, traveler and doctor, Gladys Lopez has lived many lives in many places. Now at 101 years old, her zest for life is unshakeable. She loves to dance, read and make friends at Easterseals South Florida. Her granddaughters, Elizabeth and Barbara, talk about Gladys’ amazing medical career and her lifelong desire to help humanity.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship[Barbara] She's a shining star no matter where she goes.
Even here at Easterseals, they call her "The Princess."
No matter where she is, she walks into a room, it really does light up.
[Antolina] She love to read.
She dance, she loves music and she participate a lot in the activity that we have here, in every activity.
She loves to go to the gym and she's always happy.
[Barbara] Grandma loves to read books.
She's never idle and it's one of the things that I absolutely love about her.
She's always busy, always doing something.
[Elizabeth] Man, our grandmother was like a trendsetter 'cause she would just go across the country to, like by herself, to like go and check out these other countries.
She took us to Europe and we were there for like 15 days or something insane and she broke her, she broke one of her toes on day two and we were crossing the Tower of London that day and we were like "Oh my God!
Are you okay?
Is everything all right?"
and she's like "No, no, no, let's go.
Let's go" and she just clippy clopped right over the bridge.
She just didn't stop and if that doesn't tell you the type of woman our grandmother is, then I don't think anything else will.
[Barbara] She spent 22 years in Cuba, working in the emergency room and when she came here to the United States, immediately she got certified and began working in emergency rooms here in the United States.
We can't talk about Grandma's medical career without going further back to her grandfather who was a doctor, her father who was a doctor, her uncle who was a doctor and that they all were an inspiration to her and as a little girl, Grandma never wanted to have toys or games.
She always asked for books.
And one of the things that her father, our great grandfather did was that he would teach her all about medicine and it really grew into something that became one of her life's passions.
She was going to school.
Not very many females were there.
She had to work so much harder.
She would outperform every other student.
She turned into "The Lioness Among Lions".
Not only would her friends call her that, but the professors would call her that as well.
As a child, I remember waiting for Grandma at her clinic to start a weekend and we would be there for hours, just waiting for her to finish and it's a lost art of being a doctor and really listening to your patients.
And that's one of the things that her patients truly admired and really appreciated of her.
It's that no matter how long it took, she was really going to listen to you.
She was really going to try to figure out what you needed, so that you could be healthy and better.
[Antolina] Gladys is a very special person.
She loves to see another client, how they're doing.
She always keeping an eye if somebody needs help.
[Elizabeth] I think that some people are just born with that, you know like they're just born with that want, desire, need to be around other people, be good to other people.
South Florida PBS Presents is a local public television program presented by WPBT