When he was a teenager, Hunter Adams was very unhappy, and he spent many years in the 1960s and 1970s in a special hospital for people with mental (精神的) health problems.
When he left the hospital, Adams decided to become a doctor. So he went to a medical school in Virginia, the USA. But when he was there, he did things in different ways. For example, he didn't like the doctors' white coats. He liked wearing shirts with flowers on them when he visited his patients(病人)，and he tried to make them laugh. The doctors at the medical school didn't like Adams very much because he was too different.
Adams believed that people in hospital need more than just medicine. He saw unhappy and lonely people, and he tried to help them not just as patients, but as people, too. He spent a lot of time with children in hospital, and often put a special red nose on his face to look like a clown and to make the children laugh.
When he finished medical school and became a doctor, Adams opened his own hospital called "The Gesundheit Institute", together with some other doctors. They wanted it to be a place in a different way of working with patients.
Hunter Adams became famous during the 1980s, and in 1998, Universal Pictures made a film about his life. It was very successful. In the film (called Patch Adams), Robin Williams played Adams. Williams said, "Hunter is a really warm doctor. He believes that patients need a doctor like a friend. I enjoyed playing him."
