WEST ORANGE, NJ A daughter of immigrants rises from poverty to become a respected doctor. A man uses his triumph over childhood cancer as inspiration to enter the medical field. An AmeriCorps volunteer who once lived on food stamps now helps the homeless. A soldier who suffered through the "carnage of war" is planning to become a pediatrician.

New Jersey is full of stories about people rising above their personal challenges to pursue a common goal: healing others. Learn about a few of them below.

'Carnage Of War' Transforms Army Veteran Into Pediatrician

When Saul Bautista joined the U.S. Army, he had no idea he'd end up trading bombs and bullets for healing and hope. But that's what witnessing the "carnage of war" can do to a person, the Newark resident says.

The tragic epiphany came while he was serving as a lab tech at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, the largest U.S. military hospital outside the United States. There, while helping to treat soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, Bautista encountered a critically wounded patient freshly airlifted from a war zone.

And it changed who he was forever.

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Hoboken Woman Grew Up Disadvantaged. Now She Trains Doctors

Growing up, Maria Soto-Greene lived in a four-room flat in Hoboken. Neither of her parents, who came to New Jersey from Puerto Rico, graduated from high school. Her mother was still a teenager when she was born. At 16, they had little money, no health insurance and couldn't afford a telephone.

The same year, her 15-year-old brother died before being diagnosed by a doctor. Soto-Greene, an internist, said he went blind and believes her brother probably had a brain tumor. After his death she became the "go to" person to handle family concern.

Four years later, as she was about to graduate from what is now Douglass Residential College, an assistant dean at New Jersey Medical School, who taught a course she took at Rutgers University, gave her some life-altering advice. When Soto-Greene told him that she planned to begin her career as a medical technologist, he recognized her potential and encouraged her to pursue a career as a doctor. That led to the work she has been doing over the past three decades to improve the lives of minority students and encourage them to go into the medical and other health professions field.

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West Orange Man Beats Childhood Cancer, Enters Medical Field

West Orange High School alum Joseph Ippolito doesn't remember most of his acute treatment for stage four neuroblastoma. After all, he was only 5-months-old at the time. But the medical student does remember what came afterward: years of chemotherapy, surgeries and doctor visits.

Now, after triumphing against childhood cancer, Ippolito has embarked on a new quest to dedicate his life to performing miracles for others.

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Rutgers Medical Students Care for Area Poor and Homeless

Stephanie Oh knows what it's like to live at the poverty line. After graduating college with a degree in bioengineering, she volunteered for AmeriCorps and subsisted on food stamps. "This experience made me better understand the struggles people face trying to live healthy on a limited income," says Oh, now a medical and doctoral student in neuroscience at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick.

Today, Oh puts her knowledge of medicine and indigent and homeless populations into practice as the student director of the Promise Clinic, an initiative that provides primary health care for clients of Elijah's Promise Community Kitchen.

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4 New Jersey Doctors Who Turned Hard Times Into Inspiration - West Orange, NJ Patch