Gesundheit! News

Current Campaign

NEW GRASSROOTS CAMPAIGN! For 35 years, Dr. Patch Adams and the Gesundheit Institute have worked on a model of health care that puts care at the center of health. Gesundheit has launched a grassroots campaign to raise $1 million in 08-09 to create a Teaching Center and Clinic where health care practitioners will gather to further ideas and strategies for changing the health care system. A major donor campaign is expected to raise an additional $9 million. With your help, we will establish a physical center to demonstrate an ongoing, working model of joy in service.

• Read more about the campaign
• Help put the care back in health care by donating.
• If you are interested in learning more about our major donor campaign, contact one of our Development Staff.

Educational Opportunities

THE JOHN M. STANG, MD MEDICAL ELECTIVE • Sept 29–Oct 23, 2008: "Humanistic Medicine: Constructing Your Humanism." This elective at the site of the future model hospital in West Virginia provides braided learning for the teaching of humanism in medicine using both didactic and project-based approaches. For all interested stake-holders in health care—pre-med students, medical students, nursing students, activists, scholars. Elective credit can be arranged. Read more.

EDUCARE AL DESIDERIO IN PRUNO, ITALY • November 24–29, 2008 "Education in Wanting, Not Just Knowing" A seminar offered by Clown One Italia Onlus and the School for Designing a Society in Italian and English, to address people who resist homologation, consumerism, mass media trivialization, discrimination and violence in order to design and create new systems and change our daily patterns of action. See Clown One Italia Onlus to register.

HEALTH CARE JUSTICE RETREAT • December 30–January 4, 2009  Co-sponsored by the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) and the Gesundheit! Institute, these gatherings take place in January on the land in West Virginia and emphasize compassion and social justice in medicine, with presentations by such guests as Paul Glover and Lanny Smith MD, as well as Patch Adams MD, John Glick MD, and Susan Parenti DMA.

HEALTH CARE SYSTEM DESIGN INTENSIVE • Feb 2–5, 2009 at the Visionary Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. Details to be announced. Read more about the intensives

THE SCHOOL FOR DESIGNING A SOCIETY • Summer Session 2009 on the Gesundheit land in West Virginia. During the Institute, the question "What would I consider a desirable society?" is given serious playful thought, and taken as input to creative projects. Read more ...

Upcoming Clown Trips

OVER THE RAINBOW: ROMANIA Clown Tour 2008 • October 19–28, 2008. To walk toward suffering ... with a goofy costume and smiling eyes, to touch the lives of people who need it most—that's the calling of humanitarian clowning. We invite you to join the 2008 Romanian Clown Tour to help bring that kind of care to hospitals, orphanages, and nursing homes, to children with HIV, to children and adults who live on the street. Read more ...

25th ANNUAL RUSSIA CLOWN TRIP • November 5–22, 2008. Patch Adams has been leading an annual clown trip to hospitals and orphanages in Moscow and St. Petersberg for 25 years. Although every trip involves Maria's Children and other Russian friends, every trip is different, with new friendships made. No prior clowning experience necessary.  Read more ...

Recent Events

JAPAN CLOWN TOUR with Patch Adams • September 11–19, 2008. This will be the first clown tour in Japan. Visit hospitals and institutions with Patch Adams to present love, smiles, and healing for patients, elderly persons, physically challenged persons, families and medical staff. Read more ...

BELEN PROJECT AUGUST 2008: The Fun Continues; Community Grows. Gesundheit Global Outreach brought a large clown team to the Pueblo Libre neighborhood of Iquitos/Belen, Peru, the fourth such trip, including house painting, performance, work with community organizations. Read John Glick's report here.

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX 2008: Re-Design Our Health Care System • August 6–11. A 5-day working conference at the Gesundheit Institute in Hillsboro West Virginia. The aim was to seed a variety of designs of projects at the local level, that will fundamentally change the health care system for the better. Read more here.
For reflections on the 2007 conference, read here

ITALY IN JUNE: Humanitarian Clown Trip • June 20–30. This was our 6th Clown trip to Italy, spreading joy by clowning in hospitals, nursing homes, prisons, on the streets. Read the full announcement

HAITI: WE ALL NEED EACH OTHER—Reflections on Spring Break Trip. We who have been the core of Gesundheit humanitarian clowning for decades started taking groups of students on spring-break trips to poor countries to clown. We want young people to experience what happens in themselves when they see that their actions of love and healing relieve suffering. Read more ...

HEALTH CARE JUSTICE RETREAT • January 2-5, 2008: Update. Thirty medical students involved gathered on the Gesundheit land in West Virginia to start the New Year with new ideas for the health care relationship. This retreat was organized by students involved in the American Medical Students Association. Please stay in touch to hear about future retreats.

PERU REPORT: Gesundheit completes its 8th Humanitarian Clown Trip for 2007. Gesundheit returned to Peru in December 2007, bringing several dozen high school aged youth from Camp Winnarainbow to offer fun and friendship and improve health care and sanitation in the area. Read about past clown trips ...

ITALY REPORT: Scuola per Projettare una Societa… in Pruno. The School for Designing a Society and the Gesundheit Institute held a one week workshop in Pruno, Italy at the end of November, 2007. SDAS worked with Italian students, artists, priests, and community organizers to imagine, in the media of performance, music, and writing, a society based on desirable premises. Read reflections on the SDAS blog ...