The legacy of Patch Adams to the medical profession in my opinion is more about understanding the human suffering and treating patients as a whole, not symptoms. As I was watching the making of the movie Patch Adams, I was surprised to find out that the children in the movie were real patients dealing with cancer and other diseases. I would have never guessed as they seamed like good actors to me. In fact, I think they were so good at it because they were not really acting. The fact that their mind was taken off their sickness and pain for a short while was making them genuinely happy which showed in the movie.

Also, who could really resist Robbin Williams' charisma and honest humour?

This brings me to my next point: in general children are easier to work with on a non-chemical way of relieving their pain and helping them participate in their health improvement. Contrary to adults, children have less preconceived notions and less blockage in accepting unconventional forms of relief. Furthermore, their mind is often interested in a fun way of looking at things. They also have an enormous imagination that as adult we tend to shut down.

Adults tend to carry their experience but also their load of negative programming and resistance. For example, it took me six months before I truly experienced hypnosis (even though I was doing extensive studies on the subject) because I was reluctant to let go.

Children in general tend to be more trusting and that allows us to participate in their well-being and achieve even better results than with adults.

It is sometimes a wonder how a child who is very sick from a bad infection and spiking a very high fever can be running the next day as if nothing happened. As adults, we sometimes tend to drag on and our recovery is seldom as fast as children because they have no time to be sick and just want to go out and play.

When faced with a illness, we should take example of children who fight the disease and trust that they will get better fast. We should copy their behavior when sick (and I don't mean whinning) by resting and eating to our appetite. After all, we too should be in a hurry to go out and play.