Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
GESUNDHEIT! INSTITOOT
help transform health care
HILLSBORO, WEST VIRGINIA
It often falls to the court jester to speak the truth that those in power need
to hear.
—Bernie Siegel, M.D.
47 |
The fact that comedian Robin Williams was chosen to play Patch Adams in the eponym-
ous 1998 movie about his life should be your first clue that Dr. Adams is not your average
M.D. and that the Gesundheit Institute that he started in rural West Virginia is not your run-
of-the-mill hospital. Situated amid beautiful mountains, hardwood forests, and at least three
waterfalls, Gesundheit is a holistic hospital and health-care community based on the radical
notion that medicine should actually be fun and free.
Whether you saw the movie or not, it's probably obvious by now that a volunteer vacation
to Patch's 317-acre institute promises to be unorthodox and extraordinary. Although the “silly
hospital” that Patch envisioned is still on the drawing board, there's an active community of
artists, dreamers, healers, and clowns interested in changing the medical paradigm. They're
