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Famous doctor visits MUSC Children's Hospital
The Post and Courier
by Sophia Rodriguez
May 8, 2008
Dr. Patch Adams probably is known as the most cheerful medical doctor around. After all, there aren't many who are willing to don floppy shoes, excessively bright clothing and a red foam nose after all that serious medical training.
But that's exactly what the doctor who actor Robin Williams immortalized in the movie "Patch Adams" did Friday afternoon when he visited the MUSC Children's Hospital as part of his speaking engagement at a litigation seminar hosted by Richardson, Patrick, Westbrook & Brickman.
Adams, lawyers Blair Hahn and Terry Richardson, and three litigators chosen from a drawing visited the sick children. The law firm's marketing director, Mason Scott, said Adams was a huge hit with patients and staff.
"He went right into his clown character as soon as we started to walk over," she said. "He would just go up to them and get the biggest smiles from them."
Among other things, Adams asked hospital interns to get into a giant-size pair of jockey underwear.
With giggling children in tow, some wheeling IV bags, they paraded down the seventh-floor hall.
"He turned the tables on authority and brought it down to a human level," said Hahn, one of the lawyers who was clowning with the famous doctor.
His specialty is medical product liability, particularly pharmaceuticals. One of the reasons he wanted Adams as the keynote speaker at the seminar was because of the work the doctor has done to make medication more affordable.
Adams spoke to the seminar's attendees about being grateful for what you have and taking time to love and help the people around you.
"We thought it would be a win-win to get not only a great speaker for the seminar, but to get him to visit the Children's Hospital, too," Scott said.
Adams is the founder and director of the Gesundheit Institute in Arlington, Va., which has provided holistic and free medical health care to patients since the early 1970s.
The doctor believes that happiness and creativity are key parts of the healing process, and those principles are the foundation of the institute.
However, Adams also is a social activist who has devoted a lot of time over the past three decades to changing health care in America, a system he has described as elitist and too "hands off" in terms of patient care.
When he met with the press after his visit to the Children's Hospital, he was more interested in talking about public policy than where he had just been.
"Fifty million Americans don't get health care because we care more about sports figures," he said during press interviews at the Ronald McDonald House.
He said that it is inexcusable that more Americans don't demand universal health care.
Both Scott and Hahn said they were surprised to see Dr. Adams become so heated, but they understand some of his anger about the health care system.
"He clearly is frustrated by the inequities in the world ... but his heart's in the right place," Hahn said.
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