Dr. Patch Adams Speaks About the Role of Humor in Healing

This video of Dr. Hunter ‘Patch’ Adams was recorded in 1999 at California State University in Long Beach.

In October of 2007, Patch Adams and the Gesundheit Board unveiled its campaign to raise $1 million towards building a Teaching Center and Clinic on its land in West Virginia.

The Center and Clinic will enable Gesundheit to see patients and teach health care system design.

We are calling on all friends and allies to generate 1000 x $1,000 to make the next phase of Gesundheit a reality.

Donate now.

The Impact

Patients are sick—but health care systems are even sicker. Medical and nursing schools prepare students to become part of the current health care system, which has proven its inadequacy. Where are the educational facilities that prepare us to creatively problem solve towards desirable health care systems? The Patch Adams Teaching Center and Clinic will serve this educational need.

The Teaching Center will serve care practitioners from all over the world who want to work on ideas for change.

The free clinic will serve one of the poorest areas in the U.S. and act as a global model for health care delivery.

In 1989 Patch Adams wrote “I didn’t intend to create a model that would be THE answer to the problems in health care; but to model creative problem solving and to spark each medical facility to design their own ideal.”

The Teaching Center

The Teaching Center will bring together artists, medical students, care practitioners, parents, and reformers to design positive ideas of healthcare systems, and ways to implement these ideas.

They will gather on 320 acres owned by Gesundheit in West Virginia to retreat, regroup, and strategize.

Thanks to the generous donations offered by award-winning Dave Sellers architecture firm and a crew of volunteers, we can affordably build a teaching center whose architecture is organic, playful, and inspirational.

For every building project we have undertaken, we turn $25 into $100 through in-kind and volunteer donations.

The center will provide sleeping, eating, and meeting space for up to 100 visitors to come together. It will house an extensive research library of over 30,000 titles already acquired by the Institute but until now lacking the facilities to be housed.

The Clinic

The clinic will be operated by a ten person staff of committed doctors and nurses. Gesundheit has already assembled a staff and some donated equipment, but lacks a space to practice.

This clinic will be free and not accept third party reimbursement. Care will be based on the principles of compassion and friendship. The well-being of the staff will be as important as the well-being of the patients. All manner of complementary care will be practiced. The atmosphere will be infused with fun.

The clinic will model desirable care interactions to a global audience.

We are asking those who have been inspired by Patch Adams and Gesundheit to help rise to the challenge by donating to the Teaching Center and Clinic.

The Teaching Center and Clinic are designed by one of the world’s top 100 architects, Dave Sellers, who has designed the first handful of buildings on the Gesundheit land.

The friends and allies of Patch Adams and the Gesundheit Institute are pulling together to hold FUNraisers to raise the roof on the land.

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