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Dr. Jim Withers used to dress like a homeless person. On purpose.

Two to three nights a week, he rubbed dirt in his hair and muddied up his jeans and shirt before walking the dark streets of Pittsburgh, searching for the very people he was trying to emulate.

Withers wanted to connect with those who had been excluded from his care.

"I was actually really shocked how ill people were on the street. It was like going to a third-world country," he said. "Young, old, people with mental illness, runaway kids, women (who) fled domestic violence, veterans. And they all have their own story."

Homelessness costs the medical system a lot of money. Individuals often end up in emergency rooms, and stay there longer, because their illnesses go untreated and can lead to complications.

For 23 years, Withers has been treating the homeless -- under bridges, in alleys and along riverbanks.

"We realized that this was something that could be addressed. We could make 'house calls,' " he said. It's something that Withers' father, a rural doctor, often did.

Withers' one-man mission became a citywide program called Operation Safety Net. Since 1992, the group has reached more than 10,000 individuals and helped more than 1,200 of them transition into housing.

In addition to street rounds, the program has a mobile van, drop-in centers and a primary health clinic, all where the homeless can access medical care.

Today, Withers is also fostering a global "street medicine" movement. His nonprofit, the Street Medicine Institute, supports communities in starting programs of their own. Its network includes dozens of teams in the United States and around the world.

I've dedicated myself as much as I can to finding anyone, anywhere, who's interested in doing medical care to their own street people and helping them. Besides just the good that it does and the money that it saves, having street medicine in every community transforms us. We begin to see that we're all in this together.

It's something that we should take pride in when we can actually treat people the way we would want to be treated.

Want to get involved? Check out Operation Safety Net and the Street Medicine Institute to learn how you can help.

CNN.COM