Patch Adams: Raging Against the Dying of the Light

Imagine lying in a bed with a disease. Monitors beeping. A feeling of loneliness. Nurses run around you. You sit in your frigid cot and think that no one even knows you’re there -- unless your machine starts to go off. The doctor doesn’t care if you die today or die tomorrow, just as long as he gets paid. This is the grim reality for most of the unfortunate people who have terminal illnesses. This is the way many view their time in a hospital.

In the film Patch Adams, Robin Williams plays a doctor who believes that “…doctors should treat the patient, not the disease, and that sick, frightened people need to feel that those who take care of them are paying attention….” (1) He is a 40 year old man who, after willingly committing himself to a mental institution, finds that the general treatment accorded patients is not the way to cure them. He believes that to cure the disease you must treat the patient as a person and not as an object. He first tries his philosophies out on his fellow mental patients. After helping a few of them he is determined to get away from the hospital and become a doctor so that he can treat people in a more humane and loving

On the other side of the critical spectrum, reviewer Greg Dean Schmitz, holds a more positive view of the film. He loves it to no end and believes it should have been on the best of 1999 list. “Patch Adams is a crowd pleaser,” he writes, “that belongs on any "Best of 1998" list” (3) Schmitz likes the way that Robin Williams “drives” the film and “his (Robin Williams) routines are at the top of his game … and he never stops entertaining us, but also convincing us that he's really this man, Patch Adams”. (3)

What is wrong with asking a patient how their day is going or what has been going on in their lives as opposed to asking the patient the normal questions such as: How long has this problem been affecting you or when did you start to feel this pain? This is likely to put patients more at ease, and perhaps more likely to consult with a doctor about a something that has been bothering them before it is too late. Patients are sometimes very depressed people. Not always will a patient want to be conversed with, poked or prodded. This is still no excuse for doctors not to be dismissive of patients. Sometimes it is just the brief hello or the casual question that can change the world and outlook for a patient at that time.

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