Okay, here's the deal. I know as well as you that most folks would rather gargle Drano than go to a doctor. I make no excuses for my brethren in white coats. In fact, I tell you plainly: most doctors in this world are a miserable sight when it comes to personality. I know I'm gonna get all sorts of mail about this, but, hey, truth is truth. Money is the driving force for a lot of doctors, plain and simple. You don't meet too many doctors that drive simple cars, have simple houses, and live simple lives. Why else would mommies for generations pray for their daughters to marry doctors? It’s a guarantee of a comfortable life, for the most part.
You'll find your small-town doctors that get the chance to know their patients outside the office or the hospital room. That kind of familiarity is rare, though, when it comes to the big-time hospitals and big-city medicine. A patient is known more as a room number or a condition rather than a name. And, with the way health insurance companies and medical conglomerates and those tyrannical HMO's are these days, it's difficult for a doctor to even get to know a patient if he wanted to. Insurance companies would rather see a person treated and streeted; HMO's often skip the "treated" part.
Thankfully, my needs are simple, and Carver Point's too much a part of my life for me to even consider going "big time." Sure, I'm on call all the time, but, hey, an emergency in Carver Point rarely gets beyond stitches and splints. We get the occasional heart attack or stroke, sure, but we ain't had a gunshot wound since Sherman went through town on his way to Savannah. I'll take them odds anyday.
But, I do have to tell you that there are some doctors I know that I'd gladly shanghai and strap to theatre seats if Patch Adams was playing. It's a great movie, and it tells a story that every med student should know. Patients come first, end of story.
Robin Williams plays Hunter Adams, a man with a dream. We first see Adams checking into a mental institution, because he's having severe suicidal thoughts. Once he's there, he begins to see that the doctors are basically going through the motions. They're going through the motions of medicine, but not paying attention to the patients at all. They know the charts and stats, but don't know the people behind the numbers. Adams checks himself out of the place, aiming to go to medical school himself, to be a different sort of doctor. Namely, one who listens to the people he cares for.
Of course, this meets with some heavy resistance from the dean of the school (Bob Gunton), fellow students (Phillip Seymour, Monica Potter), and nurses (Irma Hall, Frances Lee McCain). But, as Adams, now known as "Patch" (thanks to a patient in the institution who saw Adams' gifts as a listener) begins to have a positive effect on the patients he deals with, his brand of care begins to catch on. He snips the end off a rubber bulb and makes it into a clown nose. He shows up in big clown shoes, or dressed as an angel. He entertains a ward of children with his antics, and they begin to smile for the first time since they were admitted. He earns the trust of a patient (Peter Coyote) who has pancreatic cancer, one that has been rude and downright nasty to everyone else. The patient finally learns to laugh a bit, and it helps him through the last painful days of his suffering.
As his fellow students wake up to Patch's healing efforts, they join in the efforts. Patch has a vision of a clinic where patients can come to get the help they need without fear of bills and insurance woes. They're expected to be "doctors," too, in that each patient also has care duties for another patient. They get their treatment, but they also cook, or clean, or care for another patient. This brings the humanity back to the medicine. Patients know their doctors, and doctors know their patients. Finally the dean has had it, and tries to drum Patch out of school because he has, among the clowning, also "borrowed" supplies for his clinic. You can find the results out for yourself....
A winning performance from Robin is a key here, and he turns on the machine in force. But, instead of being the manic maniac we all know and love, we get the new and very improved version. Sure, we get the clowning we all loved in things like Good Morning, Vietnam, but we also get to see that brilliant serious side of Robin, cultivated in things like Good Will Hunting and Dead Poets Society. It's the best of both worlds. The emotions of the character go deep into the audience. I dare utter truth here, but even I teared up a bit as Patch comes to grips with a tragic event in the film, and when the children he entertains rally to his defense. Williams's tears of joy and sadness and thanks are so real, you can't help but feel 'em yourself.
Some good workers back him, too. Irma Hall, who I loved in A Family Thing and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, is good here as a nurse who believes in Patch. Monica Potter, who plays a student and Patch's love interest, has some good scenes, but, for the record, this woman looks too much like Julia Roberts for someone not to team them as sisters in the future. Same smile, same eyes, and same ability to draw you into a scene without realizing it. Gunton plays the same powermonger he played in Shawshank Redemption, toned down but still a nasty. Must be jockeying to succeed JT Walsh as Hollywood's resident bad man. Do pay attention, too, to Coyote's brief appearance as a man who knows he's dying, and resents it. It's a small part, but vitally important, as he is Adams' first encounter with the futile battle that sometimes goes on with Death.
Almost as fascinating as the subject matter is the fact that this movie was directed by Tom Shadyac, better known as the man responsible for the broad comedies Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and The Nutty Professor. Tom showed us a few glimpses of his serious side in Professor, as seen in his studying of the face of Eddie Murphy's character as he's humiliated in a nightclub by a comic. Here, Shadyac is open to Williams' creativity in the clowning, but knowledgeable enough to make some superb images and scenes when a more serious approach is needed. Granted, he was shooting a script based on a book by the real Hunter "Patch" Adams, but the transition from written word to visual picture is done in top form.
I don't want to run a commercial here, but I do want to take the time to tell you all that the kids in the film's children's ward are played by children suffering from potentially fatal diseases like cancer. Through the wonderful efforts of the Make A Wish Foundation, these children got the opportunity to have a dream fulfilled. These children all wanted to be in a movie, and, if my sources are correct, Williams demanded that their wish be fulfilled in this movie. Some of these children have sadly lost their hair due to the harsh chemotherapy and radiation treatments, some are in constant pain, but their smiles and laughs in this movie are as real as you will ever see on film. Williams puts on a show for us as the character, but the real show is for these youngsters, and we are lucky enough to see pieces of it. If you ever have the charitable feeling, think about the Make A Wish Foundation. Forgive my sentiment, but feel free to learn more about these wonderful people and their organization. Making dreams come true is an honorable profession in my book.
I could tell you more about this movie, but I really think you should see it for yourself. And, if you have a friend who's a doctor or a med student, take them with you. Not to be preachy or to prove a point, but just to butter their rolls a bit. There's a footnote shown before the credits roll that says that over 1000 doctors and medical professionals are on a waiting list to join the staff of hunter "Patch" Adams' clinic in the Virginia mountains. Known as the Gesundheit Institute, it still operates on the principals of friendliness and genuine care for the patients as people. If a thousand people have gotten tired of medicine as it goes today and believe in Adams' methods, I hope this movie recruits ten thousand more, 'cause, hopefully, those ten thousand could each influence one other person. If it spreads, hey, medicine might not only be an honorable profession, it might become more human, like it used to be, instead of faceless corporate drones masquerading as caregivers.
Stepping down off my soapbox, I promise. Right into a pair of clown shoes and a rubber nose....
Folks, check yourself in to see Patch Adams. Robin Williams might win an Oscar® for his performance, but we all could use a touch of humanizing in these strange and crazy times. It's worth seeing twice, no matter what the price. Consider it an investment in your future as a person.
Image copyright Universal Studios.
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medical miracle