Patch Adams

American physician, famed over the years throughout the medical community for charging no fees, carrying no malpractice insurance and living with his patients in a country farm setting. He has always maintained that humor and joy are more important than any drug or therapy, relating this concept throughout the country for a decade at lectures and seminars. A former mental patient himself who went back to school to become a doctor, Adams is founder of the Gesundheit Institute. He puts out a newsletter, "Achoo!" and is the author of two books, "House Calls: How We Can All Heal the World One Visit at a Time," and "Gesundheit: Bringing Good Health to You Through Complimentary Therapies, Humor, and Joy." He has been featured in countless newspaper article and a film about him, starring Robin Williams, was released in December 1998, "Patch Adams." The younger son of a WW II Army officer who died in 1961 and his wife Anna, a schoolteacher who died in 1989, Patch does not remember how his nickname began in college. He grew up as an Army brat in Japan, Germany and the U.S. He was deeply shaken by his dad's death at 52 but it was his uncle's suicide in 1963 that pushed him into despair. He dropped out of school and made the first of several suicide attempts. He was 18 when his mom checked him into a mental ward at Fairfax Hospital in Virginia. He turned his own emotional corner by helping his roommate conquer hallucinations and a fear of squirrels. A few weeks later Adams left the ward and enrolled at the University in Washington DC. He became a conscientious objector to the raging Vietnam war. Linda Edquist fell in love with that "incredibly charismatic person" in 1971 while volunteering at the same clinic where he worked in his final months of training. They moved in together the following year and married in 1975. Their son Atomic Zagnut (now known as Zag) was born in 1976, and Lars Zig in 1987. Patch has been described as an iconoclast, a pattern-breaker and professional clown in the Wavy Gravy tradition. In 1994, he was honored to receive the Institute of Noetic Sciences Award for Creative Altruism. He says, "I love people and medicine is simply friend after friend after friend." His Gesundheit Institute, founded in 1973, began as an experiment. For the first 12 years, 20 adults lived in a large home and used it as a crude hospital, open 24 hours a day. Three physicians and others did what they could for whoever came. They never charged money and their work was supported by part-time jobs of the live-in staff. For staff and patient, medicine was integrated with the performing arts, arts and crafts, agriculture, nature, recreation and social service. During those first 12 years, 15,000 people came through the home/facility for everything from profound illnesses to simple curiosity and play. From the 1983, Adams' time has been devoted to fundraising and building, resulting in $1.1 million and the purchase of 310 acres in Pocahontas County, WV for the location of a 40-bed hospital. Adams even has a website: www.we3ll.com/user/achoo/index.html. In October 1998, Adams and Linda Edquist divorced. His second wife for the past 23 years and mother of their two kids, she says he was not around much, with his continual travels for fundraising. As irrepressible as ever, after concluding a graduation address at the University of California, San Diego, he dropped his pants and "mooned" the audience of some 4,000, 6/17/2001. Link to Wikipedia biography