well by show ukraine ahead of meeting the country's president. at night now public state sorties interview show spotlight are going off talks to a physician who heals with humor and proves that laughter and love really are the best medicine we've often though that is coming up right here now on our team. welcome to spotlight. today my guests are patch adams and mary. he became famous using laughter and joy for healing people and has devoted forty years to trying to improve america's health care system she is russian house founder of my real children rehabilitation center for orphans in moscow the two are

here today to me the spotlight on the ins and i'll say yours and my question is. when you're down there are things against you all you need is a law that's what occurred to an american doctor patch adams who while he was being treated in hospital he founded the tide institute for laughter a piece they want to make it a health care echo community believes a person's health depends of the society he lives in and says if the world does not change from bellying money to rallying love humans will be extinct. to help change the world patch often comes to moscow to meet his russian friend money she's the head of the marias children rehabilitation center for disabled all fronts patch and their friends dress up as clowns and go to often just to bring children the love and care they lack today mary ann patchett will tell the story here on spotlight. hello

maria hello hello thank you very much for being with us thank you for coming on the show well first of all approach i would like to ask him i mean maybe a serious question you've been as far as i know i read at ten thousand deaths that as a clown so so can you teach people to overcome the fear of death. to do. what i've i don't know that it's a teaching. i think one can emphasize the fact that while you're alive you're living and that you can be celebrating your living rather than hovering on your fear of dying. and that i think my experience i've been in war zones and refugee camps and disasters and that people remember they are living in the worst of situations if the engagement is human and it doesn't mean that doesn't include crying and these sorts of things but when

one is real with someone profoundly ill they act like they're alive and engaged as they can be we we we talked about quality health care i said only to mention that you've been trying to prove the quality of killed health care in america why do you think that there that funding play joy and cloning is is so so in central essential for quality health care. in the business of care one doesn't want healthy people wrote in and the intelligence of health care one wants an emphasis on wellness on being well being well physically through exercise and diet but much more importantly being well mentally which. there's never been any science to show any value to being serious or rude or nasty or unkind or apathetic but there are thousands of papers on the

value of being joy and loving funny and keeping a joyful spirit whether you're in the worst of situations or simply going through life is. means you'll smoke fewer cigarettes drink less drinking hit the less violent and all of those things and and also stimulate your immune system and and just so many benefits to express being alive being alive isn't suffering being alive is engaged in the process of living the reason you started doing what you do and dressing like like the way you dress is because you you became disgusted in the in the traditional medicine were in a way of life in general in the society you live in general. yes that's true i. i

decided eighteen that i wanted to put joy in the public space we are a depressed nation an anxious nation and i was looking how how can i be a person that by my presentation of self people will want to engage with me that instead of feeling alienated that they will feel instantly a connection as i expanded on it in didn't i notice that if i saw a violent act in public a parent and child in a grocery store i could change into my clown character in one hundred percent of the time and stop the fight would use clones and in the tentacles for example santa claus is better than that well i've been in the santa claus it's santa claus is a theory and santa claus doesn't work nearly as well in july as he does in this one but i do try to i've tried in the and there's a there's a broader it's like putting on a batman costume you're stuck in batman but a clown is more universal you know and also all you need with a clown is

a nose and and with the santa claus you need a lot more paraphernalia and. well welcome to chevy. well once again i would i want to to to to. when did you hear when did wendy's you're going to queen to do it with a will with a method. mr adams with that patch adams and the end know how in what way did he inspire you to to stop doing what you're doing a charity. i hard the batch in ninety and ninety in the wrote him a letter and met the ninety nine tonight and ninety one. in the hospital and the cancer hospital where i came to invite him to my art studio that i had with children the three and one of them of course. he did. how he inspired me i already was working with the kids but at one or don't for that were children at

risk but with batch i got the chance to go as a clown he invited me and i when he gave me a we in the clown costume so right after i met him i went with the dry myself so you are actually the person who introduced patch to russia to russia and nations to russian can just imagine all that idea of was coming to russia before but i i only heard of him and invited him to my studio is it hard for you to to take a personal like patch and to make the russians take him seriously because russian america are different people should take you for a freak i mean when you come here. i'm not trying to hear the big breakthrough food for the possible is giving you trouble i mean. you really. are a restaurant where it ran square one time for misbehavior you know what did you do

we know where the red squares clowns thing. and we didn't obey the requests of the police and so we were able to clown in a russian jail that was very long i think we drove them crazy after a couple of hours and so they released us. will be safe for you very very much you hear her say maria one of the one of the great things that patch is doing. at least according to the film i've seen that in the movie that was shot is like trying to to to to get this distance between the patient and the doctor yes well well this is it really so serious and what creates it in that. if. we now. with tried to do something with our kids

the to do and with. children who graduate from there or from the age of they are now volunteers and clowns at the hospitals and we tried to have a seminar and a couple of russian hospitals where the doctors and nurses. to try to introduce them to bed to fear loss affair which became our there was the fear that their doctor or a nurse can have more colorful and they're more friendly local sometimes act fine year so they cared. just become more a little more relaxed. it was interesting what they answered to us they said. that they cannot be luke finding because if they do look fine ear or they blame. the parents would not trust their good doctor if they want take them third or do you have this problem in the states. well it's like

a cardboard house. the doctor hides behind professional distance scientific detachment or saying what maria's saying so that they don't have to be light hearted loving no i've never never had the problem anywhere that. at this very profound moment when people are suffering. they ache for tenderness they ache for friendliness compassion that is before technological medicine this is mostly what the doctor had to offer to sit at the bedside to be a presence of comfort. it's scientifically proved that live julie happiness it really helps people. helps people to overcome disease to be healthy but it's so if it has scientific proof why don't

clinics around the world introduce you know technique i think the world is encouraging adults to be pardon me tight assed and. there's this idea that you when you grow up you want to be serious even though there's no scientific proof that being serious is ever good for you i think that as you join the adult world there's a. an invitation to hierarchy to where the doctor at the top of the hierarchy has a position of power humor is a hierarchy killer and there's nothing that lowers the hierarchy quicker than humor and so i think that that this is. to preserve this power over that is so prevalent in the world that humor is pushed down to the circus and they want it out of i would like to say that i had a one of the first times i was in a russian hospital i was in a poor hospital that had no pain medicine and. in the u.s.

hospital they have pain medicine so i never experiment having a patient who needs pain medicine like bone metastases that you're not going to say well let's not put this patient on pain medicine so we can try humor but i remember walking into the room of six or seven year old boy who had bone metastasis no pain medicine in the hospital the child was screaming screaming bloody murder it's a horrible pain and from the story i was told is that this was something that went on for five months that the child had no respite from the pain and i remember because it was the first time walking in the room and the child. stop screaming and for one hour the child was playing the look on the mother's face was breathtaking and so from ever since then in russia i say when i enter a hospital please show me the people who are suffering the most patch adams said american physician and nearly

a yearly save here in the spotlight studio will be back shortly after a break so stay with us don't go. to areas which are made to police children. harm their health. make. sure the illness is. a nurse and. to secure their selves against. hungry for the full story we've got it for. the biggest issues get a human voice face to face with the news makers. welcome

back to spotlight i'm now we're not in just a reminder that my guests in the studio today here at patch adams and maria yes they save us we're talking about healing people we're left with a joy patch you called your clinic gives them die and it's a jab and when well why did you call your clearly because sounds funny. but there are lots of reasons like a lot of things you would use the enjoyment gives you in hollywood well it means wellness or health in a sun literally but for joining us should be wellness and we're interested in people being well but also when you tell people since americans. no languages they think it means sneeze institute so they laugh and interestingly enough i'm a scholar of cartoons and it's it is an english word now as we steal words internationally and it's the most east single used words in cartoons as

a punchline so all of those are reasons ok very. do you believe that children really miss patch after he visits your patients and then goes away did do you have a feeling that they feel sorry and left there is that make them even even more sad than they were before he came there no red talking about the kids the clown visit short visits. to the hospital. i believe the. but i don't think they feel worth up to kill it no i don't believe in that it was the thing i believe that. it's better to do a little than nothing i believe that the good impression that he brings the inspiration the collar it's the with the birth and it doesn't go away doesn't it doesn't become mine become furtive glance that may be that may be the question of your life i mean i mean is missing something good better than not knowing what are

we calling. a lovely memory missing ok you you can read a good book and it affects you the rest of your life it doesn't mean the book may be good return to the library let me give you a well this is the thing about good books you keep them on your table well any more you can write your meal or and then you go to the line and you are each year to have when when your grand parent dies you have their memory you have the grieving part ok so you can be sorry they left the room but a lot of times we try to leave her memory let me tell you a beautiful story a woman i believe she's. from siberia she we visited her in st petersburg hospital she had one of these orthopedic rings on our head and and she was laying flat on her back and we had a great time and she i gave her my address she promised she would come back and clown and three years later she said i want to learn english and now twice she's

come all the way from siberia when we go to st petersburg and clown's with us specifically for children who were in her place as any english speaker you probably don't use any of the languages accepting and and they your system is based on well you're being an american is it absolutely universal you mentioned visiting lots of countries including of ghana stand so what you do or how you dress what what you say is it universal forever what do you around the world do you like to think it's univers of human like human if there's one thing that's really clearance that we are i mean charles darwin in one of his books showed that that people all over the world recognize that the look of anger is is in all people the look of joy that the looks on people's faces that you can go to a culture and say what are they feeling and they'll say because they're the expressions are universal what i think i don't see humor as a therapy or love as

a therapy i see them as a context for a humanist approach to people so if if you have a twinkle in your eye of smile in your face and a willingness to greet i have found in every culture that they welcome you i've never seen any culture that and fact it opens a door they either go into a country i always learn friend thank you and i love you and that they they they see a lot of tourists especially poor countries you go there and you take your pictures and and maybe you buy some things but you go home and you didn't really hug or touch or embrace one person from that society where for us we're not going and buying stuff we're going. to embrace the people and the people see that so they trust us more you would be amazed that even in poor countries if if they see us in gaijin the people the person can put their camera down and even if someone steals it they can go and get it back from the person that stole it because it's it's

a way of saying welcome to our culture well let's get back to maria actually every day volunteers at the marias children's center in moscow open a gate to a brighter reality for our friends spotlights yelena dimmy of the riaa has witnessed the working miracles. it's hard to make this children smile as in their everyday life they just don't have many reasons for joy they'll even know from the ages and many of them have serious health problems tamara tries to make their world brighter with the help of art a trained physicist she accidentally learned about this art rehab center nine years ago and has been given serum mixed lessons that was scenes. of this i'm happy when they succeed in doing something and they're proud of the achievements every time they're coming here they create a little masterpieces look at whatever he wanted to make it clear helicopter so his

printing it now and then will fire it and i have no doubt that it will have another masterpiece here. artwork made by the orphans is regularly exhibited for children it's a chance to feel themselves true artists who are adults who come and see their work it's a chance to can see the volunteering eventually it's hard to tell who gets more pleasure from the art lessons students other teachers is. not all volunteers at the center excelling crafts some just come here to talk to children for many of these kids it's their only chance in the atmosphere of a family when you. in the police like this you immediately forget all your troubles and worries there are just too many bright colors all around children who come here like to draw rainbows flowers and curse souls in the clouds it's their escape to dreamland and they welcome anyone who wants to join.

our maria. we didn't see a single person. resembling patch in your in your center all of the other clowning doctors are there doctors that at least tried to do something are the kind in here in this country. yes we had one doctor with a better thing than our. it's a professor from a lot of clinic records that have john and he. looks. really little time you need me ok. and i. hate the person. is great with the kids he is the third children surgeon and the he. he he looks like he met. only last year last november but he looks very colorful smiley that seminary you mention it's called living

a life of joys don't write a patch are you sure that you can teach well the people that are suffering people that even maybe are dying to to to to feel joy. well ok well think about it you have one week to live ok that's it no one's going to cure you you're going to live for one week during that week you want to spend the time going. is that your fantasy week drug a bank ok rob a bank ok that's my idea of fun but see the thing is we could it would be our style at our hospital or something or tell me more funny than writing about well i'm telling you if that was your first hospital style as if you had a week and that's what you wanted to do we would go rob a bank i mean who wouldn't use real guns and that sort of thing but would put the mask on him with weird work with the banks so so you can't rob

a bank that our idea and they choose to be able to give the money. and. now i know you're on a web if you needed that i mean our star would have been ok particular if you were a poor family i would have taken a hundred dollars gotten it in one dollar bills we would have gone to the bank giving it to the bank to give to you when you held it up maria the children in your rehab center yeah they're not there for good you just take them for a while to make them feel better and then they go back to their orphanage is that right is it hard for them after they spend a wonderful time with you then to go to the to the usual routine in the usual orphanage which are not very fun places i know i i've been there as a journalist for. a couple of times of course the difficulty just the same question of us before about but you didn't about the plot and not about the mind. for the kids like this that we've just seen of the movie is for them the to do is

the only place they visit they live in then to do they are not able to see their world rather than the one time a week when they visit so yes i believe it's sad but yeah i just sit here and there is also had summer camps for the kids and trips down the volga river that it's that she's she's taken them she took some kids to beslan right. so that's the thing is when you're trying to help somebody at first i remember when maria had to leave two rooms and took in twelve kids ok but now many years later you try bad things you say i read your interview you like saying that that if people will not move from value money and power to value love humans will be extinct right yes right jesus christ preached the same and he was crucified so

those don't mean we're all doomed. well. let me give you some background my library is thirty thousand books there's no john question it's either great literature or the state of the world for we are and so i've read a couple of thousand books on the environment i've studied history there's not one government on the planet i respect that clearly the value system if you watch t.v. is money and power over not power but power over this is what we're teaching young people they watch t.v. they they want money and power over they don't want humanism there's no humanism education on t.v. and so in studying those things we. any the environmental environmentalists know that we are a very fragile species the reason i have no pessimism is i don't think it's too late with there will be a point if we don't change where we as

a very fragile biological species will not survive in and this century will be that century that we decided thank you thank you very much for being with us in just a reminder that my guests here in the studio today were patch adams an american physicians who treats patients with bias that have emotions and i have to and money save a founder of laureus children which is a rehabilitation center for orphans in moscow and that's it for now from all of us will be back until then stay in russia today and take care thank you.

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