GP gives patients love and a big hug

By MARTIN JOHNSTON

CHRISTCHURCH - Dr Patch Adams thrives on snooping in his patients' cupboards and giving them hugs - the kind of intimacy that would be shunned by many conservative GPs.

The 54-year-old American doctor, who yesterday streaked his waist-length grey hair turquoise to match one of his bright socks, was made famous by the Robin Williams movie about his life.

The founder and director of the Gesundheit Institute in Virginia, a holistic medical community set up in 1971 providing free medical care, Dr Adams is in New Zealand to spread his message of love and humour in medicine.

"I think friendship is the highest experience you can have on the planet," he told the College of General Practitioners conference in Christchurch yesterday.

"I'm a family doctor. I know my patients wanted to have a close relationship with me. I saw the intimacy as a key to what the heart of medicine was all about.

"My initial interviews were three to four hours long ... I wanted to know them very well. On house calls ... I went into people's drawers, I wanted to stay to dinner. I wanted to get to know you and your family and get you to know me."

He had never experienced burnout, which he attributed to receiving "all that intimacy. Yum yum," said Dr Adams, who described himself as a humanist.

"My whole life has been centred around caring for people. I like humanity so much, I like having them in my home."

He said he entered medicine in the 1960s "as a vehicle for social change." Previously he was a patient in a mental hospital, "because I did not want to live in a world that did not care."

A conference delegate asked Dr Adams how his family was affected by the 24-hour, seven-day care he offered.

He answered by describing the communal nature of the institute, saying that his children were often present when he conducted consultations with patients.

"As much as we were doing traditional medicine we were also doing [a course in] love 101. I think it was very therapeutic to have a communal setting ...

"I have two children. The eldest just completed university and excitedly is working for me in a very care-giving project. I'm sure his ability to do that came from growing up in that context.

"I think if somebody wants to have an important and wonderful and intimate relationship with their lover and their children, if that's kept centre of their life ... it's that which makes healthy relationships with your children, rather than how much time you spend with them."