Patch Adams: The Health And Accountability Act Of 1996

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The movie “Patch Adams” is based on the true story of the real Patch Adams, a man who thought laughter really was the best medicine. The movie shows how he discovers that humor can make anyone he runs into feel like they have meaning in life. He believed that even towards patients last days of life, laughter is important. Along his long path of becoming a doctor, he hits a bunch of bumps along the way. Some have to deal with legal and ethical issues that today might have been handled a differently than they were handled in the early seventies.
This movie began in 1969, when Hunter Adams admitted himself into a mental institution for severe depression, after trying to commit suicide. After being there a short time, he was able to realize that helping people was his true passion. After befriending some of the patients, he was able to help his roommate, Rudy, overcome his fear of squirrels so he could make it to the rest room. He was also able to better understand the “mad scientist”, Arthur Mendleson, who in turn …show more content…

The Health and Accountability Act of 1996, also known as HIPAA is a law that enables the privacy and security of a patient’s medical record. Seeing as the time period of this movie was in the early seventies, not many laws were broken. One example of violation of HIPAA, if the events of this movie occurred today, would be when the nurses gave Patch information about the grumpy cancer patient, or any medical information about other patients. Another example, is the fact that Patch opened his illegal facility and practiced medicine out of it without being a real certified doctor. One last example is with Patch himself, although he was trying to thrive, he broke laws along the way. He stole the hospital’s medical supplies for his own facility, and that he took it upon himself to have contact with Dean Walcott’s patients before being in his third year of medical

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