Social activism was an aspect of Hunter \Patch"" Adams played down in the movie based on his life, according to Adams, who spoke in the Distinguished Lecture Series Monday.
Adams, who lectured to a capacity crowd of predominantly students at the Orpheum Theatre, 216 State St., said he knew the movie based on his life would be ""shallow"" and ""unrepresentative"" but was also the reason he, along with colleagues, was able to break ground on a revolutionary hospital this year.
""That sweet little film has done great things,"" Hunter said. ""I wonder what an intelligently made movie would have done.""
The hospital, also known as the Gesundheit! Institute, began as a six bedroom house in the '70s in West Virginia at which staff employed unconventional therapies, ranging from humor to acupuncture.
Kristen Greene, a UW Medical School student, was one individual affected by Patch's idea of health care.
As a recent undergraduate who had received numerous rejection letters from medical schools, Greene, who introduced Adams, said she wrote Adams a letter expressing her discouragement with the process. Six days later, there was an message on her answering machine from Adams, telling her not to give up. Telling the story of her three-year correspondence with Adams brought Greene to tears Monday.
""What I just heard is a reason why I'm alive,"" Adams said of Greene's introduction.
Though Adams' lecture focused predominantly on the nature of health care, a question and answer session after his speech led to topics including the problem with today's society and his solution for those problems.
Instead of capitalism, which will be the end of our species, according to Adams, there needs to be a system of ""friendshipism,"" in which people share what they have.
""We have got to look at our priorities,"" Adams said. ""Why is money a priority?""
Current students need to return our civilization to a species that cares about species, he added.
""You will probably be the reason we survive or not.\
