Hunter "Patch" Adams was criticized in his official medical school record for "excessive happiness" and was once told by a faculty advisor, "If you want to be a clown, join a circus." Patch did, in fact, want to be a clown. But he also wanted to be a physician. Combining vastly different sides of his personality, he became both. Patch's remarkable story, which includes having been a patient and a doctor at a mental institute, celebrates the triumph of spirited individualism and the unending pursuit of an idealistic dream.