Panacea Cinematografia: Patch Adams
“You treat a person, I guarantee you, you’ll win, no matter what the outcome.”
Rating: ⚕️⚕️⚕️
To enter the world of medicine in the eyes of a medical student can be daunting. The constant pressure of trying to learn everything, with all the lectures condensed, all the deadlines endless, and all the assessments neverending. We’re just hoping that our brains will cooperate, fast. At some point, we would question ourselves: “Why am I doing this? It ain’t always fun.” But where’s the humor in that?
Enter Patch Adams.
Based on the life of a real doctor, Dr. Hunter ‘Patch’ Adams), this 90s movie is moving, inspiring, and even tear-jerking. A classic amongst medical films (as there are a few), this film sends the message of laughter and happiness as a cure, a paradoxical statement given the seriousness of hospitals in which illness and death are indeed frequent. Don’t take this film lightly, as it is dramatized and is over the top when it comes to sentimentality. (Also, Robin Williams is in it!)
Nevertheless, its message has a bearing: Medicine is all about human connection.
Like all life decisions, deciding to get into medicine is a big step. This is a definite commitment given the decade-long (perhaps even longer) journey all medical students are expected to take. It takes guts to be here. It takes guts to stay. And all it takes is your attitude. And most importantly, our reason.
Why med?
Unlikeliest of Places
The film begins in a mental hospital. Patch Adams has just self-admitted himself as a patient for being suicidal (quite surprising for a man who would later become a doctor) and finds himself observing patients with mental health conditions, understanding what they feel and see. One day, he decides to play along, and there, he discovers his reason–empathy.
Seeing how the patients were treated by doctors, Adams found his sense of purpose. Despite their differing ailments, Patch sees that they all share the same struggle–the need for understanding and compassion.
As a patient himself, he knows how it feels.
And he knows what kind of treatment is needed.
Passion and Fun
Enter the new nickname, Patch.
Now, the mental institute becomes an academic one as Patch Adams enters medical school. His willingness to connect with other people has now become part of his main driving force in developing his own philosophy in treating patients. He conducts social experiments and immediately interacts with patients at the quickest opportunity. As he learns, his convictions further take shape, and these later challenge the curricula. This would at first be distasteful to his classmates, Carin and Mitch, who were typical ambitious medical students who follow the traditional formula of the system. A bit standoffish and competitive at first, these two would later warm up to Patch, later realizing how connections do make a difference.
Patch’s passions then develop into more substantial endeavors as he begins a clinic (the humble beginnings of the future not-for-profit Gesundheit! Institute) in which he employs his methods of combining treatment and humor (integrative medicine). These methods include his usual dressing up as a clown or wearing a red nose to humor patients.
But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows.
When Funny Becomes Serious
Patch still would have his struggles, and later on, this would further challenge his beliefs, as well as lose a friend (a tragic yet true story). And this brings us back to reality from all this schmaltz.
Medicine is definitely a serious profession; after all, doctors look out for people and help them the best way they can, especially in their pain and struggle. It takes one to know one, and doctors themselves must know or at least try to know what their patients feel. To feel and experience struggle is a gift. It humbles us and builds in us empathy to prepare us for the reality of life-and-death scenarios that require life-changing decisions. These not only involve us but also the lives of others.
No wonder med school is hard.
Carrying the Red Nose
Patch then later gives his speech in defense of his actions and says that “transference is inevitable.” Which, in fact, it is. Defined by Freud and Breuer in 1895, transference refers to the profound, strong, and unconscious emotions that arise in therapeutic connections with patients. As doctors, we are trained to discourage transference from patients in order to prevent biases. To a certain degree, perhaps there should be some professional distance between doctors and patients. However, it cannot be denied that the emotional connection between the doctor and the patient is important, as well. Medicine is not merely a transaction. It involves the trust the patient puts in us. It encompasses the little nuances we, as doctors, emit and the compassion that exudes from us. All these affect how our patients will fare. Thus, we must then learn to take care.
Now, going back to the big question, “What is our reason? Why med?” The answer becomes evident when we come face-to-face with our patients.
But, of course, medical school will never be easy. Even though we all do our best in our studies for the sake of our patients, we must learn to live and breathe a little. Reality hits us when we meet our patients, and it gets harder. But we must remember that it is our job to make their lives better, to make them smile, to comfort them in their loneliness, and to help them through their pain, as it is theirs and theirs alone.
