Medical Work in the North Pacific Union Conference
SINCE being appointed medical secretary for this union conference, I have done very little traveling. The following facts were obtained largely through correspondence and by previous visiting while in the employ of the General Conference Medical Department.
It has thus far been impossible to get a complete register of Seventh-day Adventist medical missionary workers in this union conference, but there are known to be three vegetarian cafés in our three largest cities. One food factory at Walla Walla is doing a limited business in putting out good foods. The health-food business started some years ago in Portland by the Portland Sanitarium became the property of Brethren Knapp and Rose. Fire destroyed their factory last summer, and the St. Helena Food Company arranged with them and with the union conference committee to locate a branch of the St. Helena Food Company in Portland. This was done last summer.
Training-Schools
Besides the conference training-school for nurses at Portland, there are in this union conference two institutions where nurses are trained and graduated; namely, the sanitarium at Port Townsend, in charge of Dr. W. R. Simmons, and the one at Salem, Ore., conducted by W. B. Scott. Both these enterprises are qualified to give a good professional training, but neither of them is provided with a regular, conference-employed Bible teacher to give a well-planned preparation for evangelical work. The beginning of a sanitarium enterprise has been launched in connection with Walla Walla College. This enterprise announces to give the first year of a nurses’ training course. No one can question the advisability of conducting sanitarium work and nurses’ training in connection with such an important school as the union conference college. Surely it presents a most inviting opportunity to give our young people a practical training with natural methods of treating the sick, and in relating such work to the third angel’s message.
North Yakima has a sanitarium conducted by Dr. F. M. Rossiter. It is new, and is doing a very creditable professional work. The North Yakima Sanitarium is not training nurses.
Treatment Rooms under Medical Supervision
Successful and creditable treatment rooms under medical supervision are conducted in Seattle, Wash., Spokane, Wash., and in Boise, Idaho. Some, and perhaps all of these enterprises are in close sympathy with the conference work, and may be reckoned as definite factors in the work of the third angel’s message in their respective communities.
A new sanitarium enterprise has just been launched in Cottage Grove, Ore., but I have no further knowledge of it.
Treatment Rooms by Nurses
There are successful treatment rooms being conducted by Seventh-day Adventist nurses in Vancouver, Wash., and I think in Aberdeen, Wash. Possibly there are others in this union conference which may be regarded as memorials for God.
Seventh-day Adventist Physicians
Dr. G. W. Pendleton is located at Idaho Falls, Idaho. Dr. Schlaef is located in southern Oregon; Dr. States is in Franklin, Idaho; and Dr. W. D. Emery is also located in southeastern Idaho. Dr. H. B. Farnsworth is doing a prosperous business at Missoula, Mont., and I am told that several others recently graduated from the American Medical Missionary College have located in Montana. Most of these physicians in private practice write me that they are not provided with nurses, nor with facilities for using the special remedial agents which the spirit of prophecy has told us that we should use in the place of drugs.
The Portland Sanitarium is the oldest and largest sanitarium in this union conference. It conducts the only complete training-school for missionary nurses in the Northwest. Two years ago it was decided that this sanitarium should become a union conference enterprise.
During the past two years the Portland Sanitarium has improved its training course for nurses, and also the conditions under which nurses pursue their training have been very definitely improved. It is now the general impression that our young people are fortunate in gaining admission to the Portland training-school, and last spring we had more applicants for the nurses’ training than the sanitarium board were willing to admit.
The Portland Sanitarium has from its earnings met current expenses, raised the salary of some of its employees, made needed improvements amounting to three thousand dollars, and besides this the business manager’s report at their annual meeting last July showed a gain of about two thousand dollars.
There has been some talk of increasing the size of the nurses’ class, and then arranging their curriculum so as to have each nurse devote some time to field missionary work. I do not know to what extent that excellent plan has been executed.
In the city of Portland, Dr. W. B. Holden is conducting a successful medical and surgical practise. Dr. Holden does a very extensive charitable work for the poor, and does a large share of the surgery for the Portland Sanitarium.
In Portland there is quite a group of Seventh-day Adventist nurses who are working on their own responsibility and under outside physicians. Their methods and their identity could be made a strong influence for God. This introduces the subject of nurses’ work outside of our institutions, or perhaps better spoken of as the work of graduate nurses. The majority of our trained nurses soon drop out of the ranks of available missionary workers, yet most of them intended to devote their lives to some phase of medical missionary work. They have a training which will support them. Outside doctors are often22ready to employ them if they will work under their directions and influence. A nurse must be possessed of a superior grade of Christian zeal and faith to refuse such substantial employment, enter a strange community, provide the simplest equipment for treating without drugs, and demonstrate that God will prosper her in making these principles prominent. The cities and larger towns are to be entered by these medical missionary enterprises. It will be a great inducement for an individual or a church to say to a devoted nurse, Come to our town, we will assure you board and room for two months while you sell health literature, do Christian Help work, and get started in giving pay treatments.