A Study of the Pattern for Our Medical Missionary Work in Reference to the Training of Nurses
By Julia A. White, M. D.
There are many high-class nurses’ training schools in the world today which have unbounded medical facilities, and annually put hundreds of noble nurses into service. These nurses are working hard to lessen the sickness and suffering of mankind. They have had a most excellent head and hand training.
We have set for our training schools the high standard of head, hand, and heart training. We recognize that the20dominant spirit of the age, the spirit of commercialism, has invaded the sick room, and is crushing out the nobler spirit of unselfish service to the sick. We stand for reforms in the treatment of disease, abandoning the use of poisonous drugs, and instituting in their place simple rational remedies, hygienic measures, and above all, we acknowledge the proffered assistance of the Great Physician in the relief of physical as well as spiritual maladies.
For more than forty years we as a denomination have been training nurses, and in that time thousands have been graduated. Many of them are in home and foreign fields. Some are in private work, and are doing all they can to spread the truth. Many are working from a commercial standpoint, and many have given up the faith. What might this army of workers have meant to the work if they had consecrated their lives to the ministry of healing as instituted by the great Medical Missionary!
We must recognize the fact that we have not reached the ideal for this branch of our work. We have been told that “the nurses who are trained in our institutions are to be fitted to go out as medical missionary evangelists, uniting the ministry of the word with that of physical healing.” “There should be companies organized and educated most thoroughly to work as nurses, as evangelists, as ministers, as canvassers, as gospel students, to perfect a character after the divine similitude.”
“From the instruction that the Lord has given me from time to time, I know that there should be workers who make medical evangelistic tours among the towns and villages.”
“Workers, gospel medical missionaries, are needed now.” “Let little companies go forth to do the work to which Christ appointed his disciples. Let them labor as evangelists, scattering our publications, and talking of the truth to those they meet. Let them pray for the sick, ministering to their necessities, not with drugs, but with nature’s remedies, and teaching them how to regain health and avoid disease.”
This instruction is definite and to the point, yet we are not meeting God’s ideal; for we are told that “there should be hundreds in training where there is now one.” “The meaning of genuine medical missionary work is yet known by but few.” “Medical missionary work is still in its infancy.” “Because the Saviour’s plan of work has not been followed, the work has not proved a success.” “Christ, the great medical missionary, is our example. Of him it is written, ‘Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.’ He healed the sick, and preached the gospel. In his service, healing and teaching were linked closely together. Today they are not to be separated.”
To carry out our course of study and to give the proper mold to our sanitarium training schools, one of the first requisites must be that every instructor in these training schools be a medical missionary evangelist if he is to be a true leader.
These questions might be asked: Is it an advanced step to eliminate largely the domestic work of the first-year nurses and put them into the field as canvassers and medical missionary field workers under proper leadership, and thus, early in their course, inspire them with the missionary spirit? In selecting students for our training schools is there enough careful attention given to the correspondence? Are the Christian principles that form the foundation of the school impressed upon the applicant? Is she given a definite idea of what it means to be a nurse, and especially to be a medical missionary nurse? Is our age limit proper? Would more mature students make more satisfactory workers? Do we make it difficult enough for our young people to gain entrance to our training schools? Are we always careful to have satisfactory recommendations for applicants?
Surely none should be admitted but consecrated young people, those who can unreservedly give their lives to medical missionary work. As a denomination, it is truly high time for us to cease to train the professional nurse, as such, and thus cease to commercialize this branch of the Lord’s work.
When these young people enter our institutions, they should be surrounded by those who will throw about their young lives the protection they need. This responsibility should not fall on one or two. It is the duty of the whole faculty.
Our three months’ probation period should mean more than it many times does. It should separate from the school the undesirable, the frivolous, and those unfitted for medical missionary work. The school discipline should be definite and strict.
We are told that “great care should be taken in regard to the spirit pervading the Lord’s institutions. These institutions were founded in self-sacrifice, and have been built up by the self-denying gifts of God’s people and the unselfish labor of his servants. Everything connected with institutional service should bear the signature of Heaven. A sense of the sacredness of God’s institutions should be encouraged and cultivated. The workers are to humble their hearts before the Lord, acknowledging his sovereignty. All are to live in accordance with principles of self-denial.”
Our training schools should put forth special effort to make the Bible study thorough. Few of our young people have an adequate knowledge of the Bible. They have accepted present truth as a legacy from their parents. So there is the greatest need of their becoming thoroughly conversant with the principles of our faith. Their training should be considered incomplete until they are prepared to give a Bible reading at any time on any point of faith.
During their course they should become so thoroughly conversant with our denominational books that they can intelligently present them at any time. Must they learn to canvass?—Most assuredly, and their education is incomplete until they are prepared to do this work; for they must never overlook the golden opportunity of getting truth before the people. They must sow the seeds of truth beside all waters. The faithful medical missionary will find opportunities to place the printed page in the hands of the patient.
Students should be so thoroughly trained in the science of healthful living that they can go into the homes and do healthful cooking in a way to meet the demands of the people. They should also be able to teach the principles of healthful dress. In fact, they should be able to demonstrate health school work in any of its phases.
To prepare them for this work, a part of their time each year must be spent in the field, with leaders who are medical missionary evangelists.
While in training they must learn to be strong in the Sabbath school work so that when they get out in the little companies with whom they will meet, they will be a real help and inspiration to these lonely ones.
In fact, the great object of our sanitarium training schools is to train leaders in every branch of the work which is to carry the gospel to the world in this generation. Leaders are needed everywhere, in every department of our work. Our institutions suffer because of a lack in this line. The best superintendent of a sanitarium is a man who has worked in every department of a sanitarium. The best matron is the one who has proved her ability as a nurse. The great need is a thorough fitting, and then God will place these young people where they can be used to the best advantage.
When our sanitarium training schools place themselves on vantage ground, these principles will be so prominent that they will permeate our churches in such a way that every Seventh-day Adventist home will be a miniature sanitarium, influencing the neighborhood around.
Then our conference brethren will see that we truly intend to cooperate with them in the work of carrying the message to the world in this generation, and they will gladly use us, “their right hand,” in the propagation of the gospel. Then the influence of our training schools will be world-wide. This training for public work that will reach the homes of the people and teach health reform in all prophylactic as well as therapeutic measures, with the one great object of winning souls to this truth, will reach farther than any other public work that we as a people can do.
It must be very evident to those who have given the matter careful thought that we need fewer training schools, and should give opportunity for better work in larger schools. This would provide work for a larger number of graduate nurses in the institutions that do not carry training schools, and would give a better chance to develop leaders. In this way workers could be transferred from one institution to another, and all could get an all-round experience in institutional and field work.
We should plan more carefully for the work of our graduate nurses. Right here there seems to be a failure. Unless we can bind these workers to the organized work after they have finished their training course, many of them will take up professional work and drift out of the truth.
Might not two nurses be placed in each church of any size, whose duties would be to educate the members along health lines, nurse their sick, and hold health schools with the church members and their neighbors? As a means of support, they could give treatments whenever opportunity afforded, and canvass for our periodicals and books. They could be a connecting link between our people and our institutions; and21when they found cases needing medical attention which they could not manage, they could call our own physicians, where oftentimes outside doctors are called. This would build up our work.
These workers should give Bible readings, help with Sabbath school and Sabbath services. Their work should be supervised by the pastor or elder, and thus they become the helping hand to the gospel work.
Surely there would be no question about the results. If this plan were carried out, our work would be bound together into one harmonious whole, and we should be following the instruction given in “Counsels to Teachers,” page 468, which says:—
“The Lord has ordained that with those who preach the word shall be associated his medical missionary workers, — Christian physicians and nurses, who have received special training in the healing of disease and in soul winning. Medical missionaries and workers in the gospel ministry are to be bound together by indissoluble ties. Their work is to be done with freshness and power. By their combined efforts the world is to be prepared for the second advent of Christ. Through their united labors the Sun of Righteousness is to rise, with healing in his wings, to lighten the benighted regions of the earth, . . . and many will open their hearts to receive the healing beams.”
When this or some better plan is followed, and our medical missionary workers join their efforts with the evangelists, we shall not need to be told that the medical missionary work is yet in its infancy. JULIA A. WHITE, M. D.