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Wednesday</title></head><body>
<div>http://www.jhu.edu/mse/events/adams.html</div>
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<div>Patch Adams, Hopkins 7:30 Wednesday</div>
<div><font color="#000000">Shriver Auditorium</font></div>
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<div><font color="#000000">Often controversial, always vocal, never
boring, Dr. Patch Adams is a physician, an advocate of free
healthcare, a social revolutionary, and more often than not, a
clown.<br>
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In 1972, Dr. Adams founded Gesundheit!, an organization dedicated to
addressing the "spiraling costs, dispirited care givers and
alienated patients" in the American healthcare system.
Gesundheit! started as a home-based free clinic, moved to offer
overnight stays, and eventually attempted to integrate the lives of
those giving care and those receiving it. According to</font><font
color="#0000FF"> Dr. Adams' website</font><font color="#000000"> ,
"Friendship and fun were vital ingredients towards joyfully
sustaining their service. As the demand for care grew, the need for a
full facility became apparent."<br>
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In 1980, Gesundheit! purchased 317 acres of wooded mountainous land in
West Virginia as the site for an envisioned free-healthcare rural
hospital. Around the same time, Dr. Adams became Gesundheit!'s
full-time fundraiser, publically promoting the idea of building an
entire hospital based on sustaining "joyful service."<br>
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To date, several workshops and living quarters have been built on the
land in West Virginia, although hospital construction has not yet
begun. In the mean time, Dr. Adams' founding of Gesundheit! and his
revolutionary attitude towards free healthcare were made into the hit
movie</font><font color="#0000FF"><i> Patch Adams</i></font><font
color="#000000"> , starring Robin Williams. Dr. Adams has co-authored
two books:</font><font color="#0000FF"><i>
Gesundheit!</i></font><font color="#000000"> and</font><font
color="#0000FF"><i> House Calls: How We Can All Heal the World One
Visit at a Time</i></font><br>
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