My class and I spent the last few days of the year watching the movie Patch Adams in class. Based on the real life of Hunter Adams, the movie tells the story of a man that turned his life around after previously wanting to end it. Patch Adams decided he wanted to be a physician after struggling with mental health and ending up hospitalized. He realized in the institution that he wanted to make a “love revolution” and wanted to have happy days for the rest of his life. He looked forward to the future and saw he wanted to serve others with a medical degree but in a new way no one has ever seen. Patch was not a common medical student and that is something the movie really focused on. He started to “clown” around the hospital and try to make the people in pain forget all of their struggles even if it was for a little bit. He balanced his sense of humor with the love of learning and ended up higher than many of the people that lived in the books. He opened Gesundheit! , a pilot hospital that operated in a communal home, to fulfill his dreams of serving others (especially ones that couldn't afford healthcare). They opened for any struggle and any patient could walk through the doors without any cost, health insurance reimbursement, no malpractice insurance, interview, safe place like home, and other activities like arts and music to keep a happy environment. Gesundheit! Is currently out of business due to loss of funding, but it stayed open for 12 whole years. Even though his creation isn't running, he continues to speak and be based in Illinois for collaboration with institutes. He is still promoting his idea for alternative health care for everyone. While Patch’s idea is noble and all with a good heart and passion, I feel like offering free medicine will bite back eventually. Just like Gesundheit!, it fell into debt and no source of funding after a while. Also, the surgeons study for long hard years to become one and offering the same pay to the cleaning staff is not fair overall.
My sources:
Patch Adams: The movie
Comments