The Miami Herald – Laurie Futterman
“I can tell you that it is definitely NOT my paycheck that keeps me teaching. I can’t figure out specifically what it is that compels me to create a six-hour-a-day, five-day-a-week adventure show, but I have to admit, in a weird way, it’s a comical journey. Comical because I take learning so seriously and my expectations for my students are so steadfast, that all this seriousness demands a humor to keep the parts running smoothly. In other words, my science classroom has to be outrageously funny. After a lifetime of working in transplant — a profession that encompasses both end-stage cardiac disease and organ donation — you might think that humor has no place. Yet finding a reason to laugh is what got everyone through the day — patients and caretakers alike. To that end, my hero remains Patch Adams. Patch, aka Dr. Hunter Doherty, is the founder of the Gesundheit! Institute. In the darkest of situations, from the terminally ill to the aged, he used humor to help his patients enjoy the life they still had. Humor is powerful.”(more)