Our goal is to enhance personal, family and community well-being through collaborative work, play and care. We are a model of holistic medical care based on the belief that the health of the individual cannot be separated from the health of the family, the community, the society and the world. We also provide settings for volunteers desiring the experience of working in a joyful, caring community and developing community-building skills. Read on to Learn More!
Gesundheit Institute is a project to re-invent the hospital. Our project addresses all problems in the current health care delivery system and offers solutions to those problems in one model, a free clinic and hospital based on fun and friendship in rural West Virginia.
The aim of our educational outreach is to seed/design a variety of local projects that move the healthcare delivery system away from the corporate-business context into models of compassion and service.
Global Outreach gives an innovative face to care, transforming care into play, and benefitting both care giver and receiver. Clowning is the vehicle connecting us to others. We inspire people and communities to become principal agents in their own healing.
Care is based on an integrative medical model
Patients are treated as friends
Ample time is given to care interactions
Care is free (no 3rd party reimbursement accepted), and infused with fun and play
Trust is central to the care interaction (no malpractice insurance)
The health of the caregiver is as important as the health of the care-receiver
In its 40-year history Gesundheit’s Global Outreach Program, has offered care to tens of thousands, given workshops and lectures in over 65 countries, built and supported clinics, schools, and orphanages from El Salvador to Cambodia. It has brought the joy and healing of clowning to parts of the world damaged by violence and injustice.
Patch Adams MD & Gesundheit Institute, P.O. Box 307, Urbana, IL 61803
© Copyright 2025 Gesundheit! Institute
If you have ever felt positive about this project and agree with us that it should continue, we hope you'll be able to step up and donate some amount to help us keep going. Thank You!
