Our Mission
The Gesundheit! Institute is a project in holistic medical care based on the belief that one cannot separate the health of the individual from the health of the family, the community, the world, and the health care system itself.
About Patch Adams
Patch Adams is best known for his work as a medical doctor and a clown, and he is also a social activist who has devoted 30 years to changing America's health care system. He believes that laughter, joy and creativity are an integral part of the healing process.
About Gesundheit!
The institute began as a group of twenty friends, including three doctors, who moved into a six-bedroom home and called it a free hospital. The hospital was open 24 hours a day and 7 days a week for all manner of medical problems from birth to death.
Subscribe to Funny Times
Gesundheit! News
REPORT BACK FROM 2010 PERU TRIP Carl Hammerschlag, MD, on the recent trip as part of the Belén Project
PATCH ADAMS CLINIC IN PHILADELPHIA Located in a low-income Philadelphia neighborhood, this clinic will provide community-based health care that is genuinely non-profit, preventive, humane and fun. It is a refuge for doctors and nurses who want time to heal patients. It is a refuge for patients who want to be treated with dignity. Read more
Reflections on the HEALTH CARE SYSTEM DESIGN INTENSIVE • May, 2010 The seventh Thinking Outside the Box Intensive took place in Olympia, Washington. Read a report on the event
Opportunities
CLOWNING & PERFORMING in COSTA RICA • September 6–10, 2010 Five-day workshop with Patch Adams, organizers of the School for Designing a Society, and local practitioners, in performance & clowning in hospitals, orphanages, and the street. Read more and register ...
HUMANISTIC MEDICINE: CONSTRUCTING YOUR HUMANISM • October 10–30, 2010 The John M Stang Medical Elective is a three week course in humanism and compassion in medicine for pre-med students, medical students, nursing students, activists, and dreamers, with a series of presenters and project-based learning on the Gesundheit land in West Virginia. Read more and apply
26th ANNUAL RUSSIA CLOWN TOUR with Patch Adams • Nov 6–20, 2010 Clowning in Moscow and St. Petersburg with old and new friends of Patch and Gesundheit ... and you? Read more and register
CLOWN TRIP TO KENYA • February 18-25, 2011 Over the Rainbow and Gesundheit! Institute are organizing a clown trip to Kenya next February 2011 to visit a community that welcomes orphans and children with HIV. Come with us and spread the LOVE !!! Read more and register
Sister Projects
CAMP WINNARAINBOW • Mendocino County, California Wavy Gravy's circus and performing arts camp in California, where Patch Adams teaches "clown philosophy" every summer. Watch Taylor Reed Branson's promo video
Patch's Blog
June, 2010
These last two months have been thrilling. First two days in Italy in April, at the university of Rome, addressing students with a new presentation about teaching caring in schools, and the next day to the city of L’Aquila, site of the recent earthquake. Made the same address in a packed tent of students who had lost classrooms. I hear a longing to work in meaning.
In May I went to 3 cities in Spain to be with a roomful of local doctors — friendly and interested in the practice I was describing. All health care in Spain is free — doctors hunger for more time with patients. Doctors all over the world express this, and patients also hunger for more time. I was told the average visit with a doctor is 5 minutes. I felt such a need for a fun-loving practice.
Where's Patch?
Recent and upcoming speaking engagements of Patch Adams, MD, around the world: Read more ...