Background

Patch Adams was born as Hunter Doherty Adams on the 28th of May, 1945 in Washington, District of Columbia, United States, the second son of a school teacher, Anna Campbell Stewart (Hunter) and a US army major, Robert Loughridge Adams. Patch had a difficult childhood growing up on army bases throughout the world.

His father had fought through World War II and Korea before being stationed in Germany. Patch’s father's war experience caused a rift and a true connection between father and son wasn’t made until the final days of Mr. Adams Senior. In 1961 Patch’s father passed away due to a heart attack, leaving behind a wife and two sons. His mother relocated Patch and his brother, Robert Loughridge "Wildman" Adams, Jr. to Virginia.

This was a time of open racism. When Patch saw Whites Only signs he realized his country was fake and religion was fake because they allowed such injustice and dehumanization. As a teen Patch was beaten up for standing against violence and racism. In his 18th year, he was hospitalized three times at a mental hospital for trying to commit suicide. Patch did not want to live in a world of violence. During his last hospitalization, he chose to make a revolution by healing people with love and laughter, instead of ending his life.

Education

Patch Adams finished Wakefield High School in 1963 and further completed pre-medical coursework from George Washington University. He entered medical school at Medical College of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, without having an undergraduate degree and subsequently, received a Doctor of Medicine degree in 1971.

Career

Patch Adams began his career working in an emergency room. In 1971, he set up the Gesundheit! Institute, and shop in the suburbs of Washington, working out of various doctors’ homes. He operated the hospital from his home for over 12 years, integrating all healthcare issues in one model and treating patients for free, with no health insurance reimbursement or malpractice insurance. The number of patients increased in due course, but he started facing difficulties in funding the hospital. While searching a way out to receive funds to operate his hospital and continue serving his patients, he chose to go public and become a speaker in 1984. He began making presentations at medical schools and conferences in the United States and abroad.

In 1983 Adams stopped seeing patients and devoted himself to achieving his dream of constructing a medi­cal campus in West Virginia where he could witness the fruition of his revolutionary, non-bureaucratic approach to treatment. For many years, he managed to raise only a portion of the money that was needed and was only able to erect one modest barn-style building on a 310-acre parcel near Hillsboro, West Virginia, that he and some partners purchased from a lumber company in 1980. He started a campaign, along with Gesundheit Board, in 2007 to raise $1 million for constructing a Teaching Center and Clinic in West Virginia, an initiative to treat patients and teach health care design on one platform. The first phase of the Teaching Center underwent construction in 2011.

In 1985, Adams started a clown trip with a group of people to the then-Soviet Union, visiting hospitals, orphanages, elder homes and performing on the streets, clad in colorful attire, to bring love, joy, and laughter to patients and other people. Presently, he continues to travel for around 300 days in a year, delivering over 11 lectures in one day, in addition to visiting patients in countries, such as Afghanistan, Bosnia, Russia, and Cuba. He is serving as the Assistant Secretary of Health for Holistic Health on the Green Shadow Cabinet of the United States.

In 1992, Patch Adams co-wrote a book with Maureen Mylander titled, Gesundheit!: Bringing Good Health to You, the Medical System, and Society through Physician Service, Complementary Therapies, Humor, and Joy. In 1997, Universal Studios purchased the rights to the book for about $175,000 and it was made into a successful film starring comedian Robin Williams.

After the film was released, the previously anonymous Adams found himself the subject of media inquiry, which he apparently regarded as a double-edged sword. On one hand, he eschewed the attention and was reluctant to grant interviews. However, celebrity made his goal of building his hospital much more realistic, since his higher profile made it easier for him to raise funds for the Gesundheit! Institute facility, despite growing construction and operating costs.

In 1998 Adams published a second book, House Calls: How We Can All Heal the World One Visit at a Time, il­lustrated with cartoons by Jerry Van Amerongen.

Achievements

• Patch Adams is a well-known public speaker and performer that is an expert on the grounds of wellness, laughter, humor and health care systems. With friends, he created The Gesundheit! Institute, that has involved over a thousand people a year through their volunteer programs, medical student opportunities, and humanitarian clown trips.
  
  Patch has been listed as a noteworthy internist, health facility administrator by Marquis Who's Who.
  
  During his career, Adams received a number awards, including Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award in 1997, Doug Fletcher Award for Excellence from the American Association for Thera­peutic Humor in 1999, as well as the International Lion's Club Foundation's Melvin Jones Fellow for Humanitarian services award, the Norman Felton and Denise Aubuchon Humanitarian Award, and the American Medical Student Association Health Justice Award.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Illness and the Art of Creative Self-Expression: Stories and Exercises from the Arts for Those With Chronic Illness

    (In this unique, inspiring guide to holistic healing, a co...)

    2000
  • Gesundheit!: Bringing Good Health to You, the Medical System, and Society through Physician Service, Complementary Therapies, Humor, and Joy

    (The inspiring and hilarious story of Patch Adams's quest ...)

    1992
  • Pet Goats & Pap Smears: 101 Medical Adventures to Open Your Heart & Mind

    (Go behind the exam room door to experience the secret liv...)

    2012
  • House Calls: How We Can All Heal the World One Visit at a Time

    (Dr. Patch Adams knows the inner side of healing. House Ca...)

    1998

• movie

  • Patch Adams 1998

Views

Patch Adams believes that the most revolutionary act one can commit in our world is to be happy.

Quotations: "The role of a clown and a physician are the same - it's to elevate the possible and to relieve suffering.

"I'm a clown, which could be a public health role. I'm really interested in moving our society away from a society needing Xanax and Prozac, and that is really feeling depressed, to one that is celebrating, and so I find just walking around in colorful clothes, people smile".

"Humor is an antidote to all ills".

"Be friendly to everyone at all times; experiment outrageously".

"Find ways to need a whole lot less money; share beyond belief".

"You've got to know what you want. This is central to acting on your intentions. When you know what you want, you realize that all it is left then is time management. You'll manage your time to achieve your goals because you clearly know what you're trying to achieve in your life".

"I'm great at a deathbed. I've never given tranquilizers or psychiatric medicine. I've given love and fun and creativity and passion and hope, and these things ease suffering".

"At the age of 18, I made up my mind to never have another bad day in my life. I dove into an endless sea of gratitude from which I've never emerged".

"If we don't change from a world society that worships money and power to one that worships compassion and generosity, I think we'll be extinct by mid-century. I don't say that as an alarmist or as a pessimist".

"Everyone who goes to a job he doesn't like is a lot weirder than I am".

"It is inexcusable that the richest country in the world does not take care of all of its people. We don't consider ourselves idealistic; we're thoughtfully trying to make a beautiful health care model".

Connections

Patch Adams was married twice. His first marriage was to Linda Edquist. They had two sons, Atomic Zagnut Adams and Lars Zig Edquist Adams. Presently, he is married to Susan Parenti.

Father:

Robert Loughridge Adams

Mother:

Anna Campbell Stewart

Wife:

Susan Parenti

Susan Parenti is an American touring performer, writer, and collaborator with Dr. Patch Adams. She was one of the founding organizers of the School for Designing a Society, a grassroots school for social change in Urbana. Susan has authored three books, The Politics of the Adjective 'Political', I and My Mouth and Their Irresistible Life in Language, and Paying Attention to Language.

Parenti received her degrees in musical arts (DMA) from the University of Illinois, and her bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University. After studying for two years in Rome, Italy, at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, she became a composer as a profession.

Susan is currently a teacher and organizer of the School for Designing a Society in Urbana-Illinois, a two-year program where the composition is applied to social change. She has been a guest teacher at some of the most progressive schools in the United States and Europe, Evergreen College in Washington, Bard, Bennington, Oberlin, New College in Florida, Virginia Beach, Oklahoma State as well as on the faculty at the University of Illinois, teaching the innovative freshmen Discovery course. Susan has taught at Schumacher College in England, and at the Gesammtehochschule in Kassel, Germany.

ex-wife:

Linda Edquist

Linda Edquist is an American Conservator and Head of Preservation, National Postal Museum, 1993–2018, managed conservation projects, staff, and exhibitions at the museum.

Brother:

Robert Loughridge Adams Jr.

Son:

Atomic Zagnut Adams

Son:

Lars Zig Edquist Adams