Patch to talk health care, humor for Integrity Week

Medical School and Nursing students will be heading to 34th and Spruce streets tonight -- but they won't be heading to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Instead, they will be attending the speech by famously humorous Dr. Patch Adams in Irvine Auditorium at 7 p.m.

Tickets for the Integrity Week event were sold during three rounds of a lottery made available to all members of the Penn community.

Although approximately 1,800 students, faculty and staff entered the drawing to win tickets, some people had to be turned away so attendance would not exceed Irvine's capacity of 1,260 seats.

"We're thrilled with the number of entrants, and we expect good attendance and probably a sellout," Co-Director of the Social Planning and Events Committee's Connaissance branch Raymond Win said.

The Wharton sophomore said that he was specifically pleased by the level of interest displayed by members of Penn's medical community.

Co-Chair of the University Honor Council Dan Landsburg said that he was relatively confident all along that the event would sell out. Adams "is a pretty big draw, he appeals to the Medical School and pre-med students" and attracts a variety of people because of his dedication to humanitarian causes.

Nursing freshman Sarah Guida was one of the students who was not chosen by the lottery for a ticket.

"I didn't realize that it would fill up that quickly," Guida said.

She said that after surveying other speakers slated for this semester, she thought Adams' lecture would be most inspiring for her.

"I thought that it would interest me more than Queen Noor [of Jordan] -- it has a lot to do with the fact that he is a doctor and I could relate to it."

Landsburg said that although he is unsure about what Adams' speech will include, he hopes that he will concentrate "on integrity and ethics and his clinic, where he provides free health care services to the underprivileged."

But, he noted that "we think he'll be pretty lighthearted about it."

"He tries to have fun with his patients instead of being a routine doctor," Win said. "And sometimes that's overlooked in med school."

College sophomore Josh Soros was unaware of the lottery, but had intended on going to the event to hear about Adams' acts of selflessness.

"Patch Adams did a remarkable thing for our country by starting his clinic," Soros said. "That's an amazing thing to have done, to have sacrificed your livelihood to just do something for the sake of humanity."

"I think there's a lot that's not right with our medical system today, and I think what he's doing brings ethics to the field of medicine," he added.

Because of the magnitude of the Adams' lecture, Landsburg said that he feels the event "will help to get the message out about Integrity Week so we can inform people about our events and get them more excited about other events we will be holding."

Some of the other activities being held for Integrity Week include a screening of the Robin Williams' movie Patch Adams, a Science, Medicine and Integrity Bioethics Debate and a panel discussion of alcohol and University policy co-hosted by the InterFraternity and Panhellenic councils.

The University Honor Council is co-hosting Patch Adams' talk with the Provost's Spotlight Series and the Social Planning and Events Committee's Connaissance branch.

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