Gesundheit! News

Patch's blog

Read Happy Birthday messages to Patch here.
Read Patch's most recent blog here.

Educational Opportunities

CLOWNING AND CARING IN COSTA RICA • Sept 10-16, 2009 An educational clown tour, with Patch Adams, Susan Parenti, Mark Enslin, Melanie Melzer, and Kate Herron Slaymaker. Read more & Register

THE JOHN M STANG MEDICAL STUDENT ELECTIVE • Sept 29–Oct 23, 2009 Humanistic Medicine: Constructing Your Humanism, for all stakeholders in health care: pre-med students, medical students, nursing students, activists, scholars. Read more & apply ...

THE SCHOOL FOR DESIGNING A SOCIETY • July 10–17, 2009 The School for Designing a Society is now full; any further applications will be placed on a waiting list. Thanks to all who expressed interest and encouragement! The next summer school will take place in July 2010. Read more ...

RE-DESIGNING THE CHARACTER OF THE CARE-ACTOR • July 19–22 The Health Care Intensive is now full. Any further registrations will be placed on a waiting list. Thanks to everyone who responded so enthusiastically! The next Intensive is planned for April 2010. Read more ...

Current Campaign

NEW GRASSROOTS CAMPAIGN! For 35 years, Dr. Patch Adams and the Gesundheit Institute have worked on a model of health care that puts care at the center of health. Gesundheit has launched a grassroots campaign to raise $1 million in 08-09 to create a Teaching Center and Clinic where health care practitioners will gather to further ideas and strategies for changing the health care system. A major donor campaign is expected to raise an additional $9 million. With your help, we will establish a physical center to demonstrate an ongoing, working model of joy in service.

• Read more about the campaign
• Help put the care back in health care by donating.
• If you are interested in learning more about our major donor campaign, contact one of our Development Staff.
• There's a winning design from the fun-raising t-shirt design contest!
  Read more & order
• CALL for poems, quotations, prose, and pictures about peace (100 words or less) from writers around the world of all ages and backgrounds, to be compiled in a book titled 1000 Pieces of Peace. Proceeds will go toward the building campaign. Deadline June 30, 2009. Learn more
• THE BELÉN PROJECT: Special grassroots fund raising request for ongoing community collaboration in the Belén district of Iquitos, Peru. Read more about the project ...

Upcoming Clown Trips

SOUTH ITALY CLOWN ONE ITALIA TOUR: CALABRIA and SICILY • June 27–July 7, 2009
The seventh Clown One Italia tour, beginning in Reggio Calabria and ending in Palermo. We propose you 10 days of intense clowning: from home, on the train, on the plane, in the street, everywhere! We will visit hospitals, nursing homes, psychiatric communities and healthcare facilities for disabled people. By connecting with all the people that we will meet on the road, we will discover the extraordinary power of love in action and how it can generate peace and friendship. No previous clowning experience is required. We only ask you to wear your clown costume, a red nose and to bring a musical instrument. Patch Adams will not participate in this tour. If you wish to know more and/or have questions, do not hesitate to email Ginevra at: info at clowns.it Drop us an e-mail, we will keep you posted and send additional information on itineraries and costs. Keep in touch! Un abbraccio !

ROMANIA CLOWN TRIP • June 28 — July 8, 2009 The Gesundheit! Institute and Over the Rainbow invite you to participate in a 10-day clown tour in Singureni, Romania, visiting hospitals and orphanages, offering to paint and repair houses and miscellaneous work in the community where we will stay (it is a community that welcomes orphans and children infected with HIV). The trip costs 800 euro (the price doesn`t include airfare. We will land in Otopeni Airport in Bucharest). Patch Adams will NOT be on this trip. For more information contact Elisa (e.rampin at tin.it) or Wildman (wildeman69 at verizon.net)

NORTHERN ITALY CLOWN TOUR, PADUA TO VENICE • July 11-22, 2009
Gesundheit's partner, Over the Rainbow, is organizing a clown tour in northern Italy (Padua and Venice) this July 11-21, 2009. We will clown all together visiting hospitals, nursing homes, orphanages centers for people with different abilities and wherever there is a need. During these 11 days we will help people and discover the power of our heart spreading love and compassion. No experience clowning is necessary. We will spend a day taking local disabled children in a boat visiting all the villas in Riviera del Brenta.

The cost of the trip, including food, lodging, and transportation, is 1500 euro.  This does not include airfare from your home city to Italy. If you want more information you can write in Italian or English to Elisa (e.rampin at tin.it) and Wildman Adams (wildeman69 at verizon.net). Come with us for this humanitarian experience!

BELEN PROJECT 2009 • August 4-18 Announcing the 4th Annual Gesundheit and Bolaroja "Paint the Town and Clown Around" Belen Project, in Iquitos, Peru. Join clowns from around the world as we collaborate with the Pan American Health Organization, Doctors for Orphans, La Restinga, Selva Amazonica and the people of Belen, in a collaborative, fun, and multifaceted service project in one of Latin America's most challenging and unique communities. We will clown, lead workshops for children, hold huge play fairs, provide health care screenings and vaccinations, and paint another 130 homes. You can register for The Belen Project by emailing both Charlotte Smith-Huggins at cstarocean at aol.com and John Glick at jawkneemail at comcast dot net
Read more about the Belén Project.

COSTA RICA • Sept 10-16, 2009 CLOWNING AND CARING, an educational clown tour, with Patch Adams, Susan Parenti, Mark Enslin, Melanie Melzer, and Kate Herron Slaymaker. Read more & Register

Recent Events

NICARAGUA CLOWN TRIP Alternative Spring Break • March 7-14, 2009 by John Glick. Read more ...

CUBA CLOWN TRIP • Dec 2008 by John Glick. Read more ...

ECUADOR CLOWN TRIP • June 2008 by John Glick. Read more ...

REFLECTIONS on the Feb 09 Health Care Systems Design Intensive: Carl Hammerschlag, MD, a guest presenter at the Intensive, blogs about his experiences in Baltimore, with video & photos: www.healingdoc.com

2009, YEAR OF HOPE AND CHANGE: THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX—DESIGN DESIRABLE HEALTH CARE SYSTEMS! • Feb 2–5, 2009 at the Visionary Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.  Interactive teaching sessions and small group work to enable participants to “build their own”—develop their own ideas and desires for their ideal health care practice. Speaker and project presentations reported on “what’s out there?”—informing us about actual models, structures, and practices going on right now that act as models for inspiration and influence. Patch Adams MD, the Gesundheit doctors and practitioners, and School for Designing a Society teachers were actively present in all sessions during the conference. Co-sponsored by the Emory University School of Medicine. Read more about the intensives

Read the HEALTH CARE INTENSIVE 2009 BLOG in progress ...

EDUCARE AL DESIDERIO IN PRUNO, ITALY • November 24–29, 2008 "Education in Wanting, Not Just Knowing" A seminar offered by Clown One Italia Onlus and the School for Designing a Society in Italian and English ... We human beings need to strengthen not only our knowing, but also our wanting—the ability to see that something is missing, that things could be otherwise. This is the 2nd year that SDAS offers a 7-day workshop in desire, design, performance, interaction and fun in this mountain village in Italy. Openings are still available. To apply, email Ginevra Sanguigno
For more info, visit http://www.designingasociety.org

25th ANNUAL RUSSIA CLOWN TRIP • November 5–22, 2008. Patch Adams has been leading an annual clown trip to hospitals and orphanages in Moscow and St. Petersberg for 25 years. Although every trip involves Maria's Children and other Russian friends, every trip is different, with new friendships made. No prior clowning experience necessary.  Read more ...

THE JOHN M. STANG, MD MEDICAL ELECTIVE • Sept 29–Oct 23, 2008: "Humanistic Medicine: Constructing Your Humanism." This elective at the site of the future model hospital in West Virginia provides braided learning for the teaching of humanism in medicine using both didactic and project-based approaches. For all interested stake-holders in health care—pre-med students, medical students, nursing students, activists, scholars. Elective credit can be arranged. Read more.

JAPAN CLOWN TOUR with Patch Adams • September 11–19, 2008. This will be the first clown tour in Japan. Visit hospitals and institutions with Patch Adams to present love, smiles, and healing for patients, elderly persons, physically challenged persons, families and medical staff. Read more ...

BELEN PROJECT AUGUST 2008: The Fun Continues; Community Grows. Gesundheit Global Outreach brought a large clown team to the Pueblo Libre neighborhood of Iquitos/Belen, Peru, the fourth such trip, including house painting, performance, work with community organizations. Read John Glick's report here.

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX 2008: Re-Design Our Health Care System • August 6–11. A 5-day working conference at the Gesundheit Institute in Hillsboro West Virginia. The aim was to seed a variety of designs of projects at the local level, that will fundamentally change the health care system for the better. Read more here.
For reflections on the 2007 conference, read here

ITALY IN JUNE: Humanitarian Clown Trip • June 20–30. This was our 6th Clown trip to Italy, spreading joy by clowning in hospitals, nursing homes, prisons, on the streets. Read the full announcement

HAITI: WE ALL NEED EACH OTHER—Reflections on Spring Break Trip. We who have been the core of Gesundheit humanitarian clowning for decades started taking groups of students on spring-break trips to poor countries to clown. We want young people to experience what happens in themselves when they see that their actions of love and healing relieve suffering. Read more ...

HEALTH CARE JUSTICE RETREAT • January 2-5, 2008: Update. Thirty medical students involved gathered on the Gesundheit land in West Virginia to start the New Year with new ideas for the health care relationship. This retreat was organized by students involved in the American Medical Students Association. Please stay in touch to hear about future retreats.

PERU REPORT: Gesundheit completes its 8th Humanitarian Clown Trip for 2007. Gesundheit returned to Peru in December 2007, bringing several dozen high school aged youth from Camp Winnarainbow to offer fun and friendship and improve health care and sanitation in the area. Read about past clown trips ...

ITALY REPORT: Scuola per Projettare una Societa… in Pruno. The School for Designing a Society and the Gesundheit Institute held a one week workshop in Pruno, Italy at the end of November, 2007. SDAS worked with Italian students, artists, priests, and community organizers to imagine, in the media of performance, music, and writing, a society based on desirable premises. Read reflections on the SDAS blog ...