When he was teenager, Hunter Adams was very unhappy, and he spent many years in the 1960s and 1970s in a special hospital for people with mental health problems. When he left hospital, Adams decided to become a doctor, so he went to a medical school in Virginia, in America. But when he was there, he did things in different ways. For example, he didn’t like the doctors’ white coats, so he wore shirts with flowers on them when he visited his patients, and he tried to make them laugh. The doctors at the medical school didn’t like Adams very much because he was too different.
Adams believed that people in hospital need more than just medicine. He saw unhappy and lonely people, and he tried to help them, not just as patients, but as people too. He spent a lot of time with children in hospital, and often put a special red nose on his face so he looked like a clown and made the children laugh.
When he finished medical school and became a doctor, Adams opened his own hospital, called The Gesundheit Institute, with some other doctors. They wanted it to be a place with a different way of working with sick people.
Hunter Adams became famous during the 1980s, and in 1998, Universal Pictures made a film about his life. It was very successful. In the film, Robin Williams played Adams. Williams said, “Hunter is a really warm person, who believes that patients need a doctor who’s a friend. I enjoyed playing him”
Was Hunter Adams a doctor?
Where was the medical school?
How did Hunter Adams make children in the hospital laugh?
What did Hunter Adams do after he finished medical school and became a doctor?
In Hunter Adams’ opinion, what was a good doctor like?