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A review by savaging
Gesundheit!: Bringing Good Health to You, the Medical System, and Society Through Physician Service, Complementary Therapies, Humor by Patch Adams
2.0
Is there something wrong with me if I can't bring myself to trust Patch Adams? All those beautiful ideas, and here I am with my arms folded and looking half away.
This book is a useful reminder to live with humor; a useful reminder that every dying person is actually a living person. But beyond this utility, Patch feels a little too bright for me. No shadows, no worries, no existential despair in the face of death. Humility, yes, but no self-doubt.
The book is a critique of not only modern medicine but also leftist attempts to improve it, along the track of Ivan Illich. And yet, Patch's non-dehumanizing solution is so fragile, tentative -- and as far as I can tell, still unbuilt. (In the meantime, what I wouldn't give for a little single-payer universal coverage . . .)
If eternal hope and a life without existential despair in the face of death sounds like just your thing: this is the book for you.
This book is a useful reminder to live with humor; a useful reminder that every dying person is actually a living person. But beyond this utility, Patch feels a little too bright for me. No shadows, no worries, no existential despair in the face of death. Humility, yes, but no self-doubt.
The book is a critique of not only modern medicine but also leftist attempts to improve it, along the track of Ivan Illich. And yet, Patch's non-dehumanizing solution is so fragile, tentative -- and as far as I can tell, still unbuilt. (In the meantime, what I wouldn't give for a little single-payer universal coverage . . .)
If eternal hope and a life without existential despair in the face of death sounds like just your thing: this is the book for you.