The re module includes the sub() function, which enables you to find any substring matching a specified pattern and replace it with a substring of your choice.

For example, the following code replaces all occurrences of one or more consecutive whitespace characters with a single space:

import re

patientname = "Patient    Name:   John    Doe"
patientname = re.sub("\s+", " ", patientname)
# patientname is now "Patient Name: John Doe"

To specify an upper limit on the number of substitutions to perform, supply a count as the fourth parameter to sub():

import re

patientname = "Patient    Name:   John    Doe"
patientname = re.sub("\s+", " ", patientname, 2)
# patientname is now "Patient Name: John    Doe"