Well Equipped Institution Favorably Located—What It Is Prepared to Do—Some Results of Its Work
ByNEWTON EVANS, M. D. President College of Medical Evangelists, Loma Linda, California
At Loma Linda, in southern California, is conducted a school for the specific purpose of educating medical evangelistic workers. The inception and growth of the work of this institution has been attended by so many encouraging experiences that no fair-minded person can doubt the workings of the hand of the Lord in the selection of the location, in the development of the educational features of the work, and in the rapid growth of the material equipment of the school and the sanitarium.
SANITARIUM HILL, LOMA LINDA
SUN PARLOR, LOMA LINDA SANITARIUM
RAILWAY STATION, LOMA LINDA, CAL.
CHAPEL ENTRANCE LOMA LINDA COLLEGE
Loma Linda was at first simply a sanitarium, but very soon instruction was received that the work of the institution was to be made strongly educational in character.
The property, consisting of a considerable tract of land, and providing a large institutional building which had been erected for sanitarium purposes, was purchased in 1905. Within a few months after the sanitarium work was begun, steps were taken to organize a medical evangelistic school in conjunction with it. In October, 1906, a state charter was secured legalizing such an institution. The first printed announcement states that the following courses are provided: (1) evangelistic-medical, (2) collegiate, (3) nurses’ training school, and (4) a course for gospel workers.
From the first, the work of the school was successful, and many students were trained, and went out into the regions beyond. The school has grown marvelously in material equipment, in teaching corps, in students, and in influence. As the work progressed, the constituency became convinced that the interests of both the sanitarium and the school would be fostered by the organization of the two as one institution, under one management. Consequently this has been and is the plan of organization.
In 1909, four years after the beginning of the work, it was deemed necessary that the school be chartered as a regular medical school, with authority to train and graduate regularly qualified physicians, who should be legally entitled to take state board examinations, and to receive license to practice as doctors of medicine. This step, therefore, was authorized by the denomination, and the charter was secured in December of that year. From the medical course proper, two classes have already been graduated, one of six members in 1914, and one of twelve members in 1915.
From the first, it has been felt that the educational work should be especially strong in the training of medical missionary nurses and medical missionary physicians. In fact, the situation has resolved itself into a plan to educate three rather distinct classes of medical missionary workers: namely: first, nurses, many of whom receive additional postgraduate work, giving unusual ability as nurses; second, many with a training making it possible for them to do much of the work of physicians in conjunction with their work as evangelists, though not receiving legal recognition as physicians, the demand for such workers being large in the great mission fields of the far East—India, China, Korea, etc.; third, regularly qualified physicians trained as medical missionaries.
The great purpose of the school, as stated at its origin, is to train evangelists. Those who have been engaged in the educational work at Loma Linda have seen clearly some of the fundamental truths which must guide and control in its work. The corner stone in its educational system is the study of the Bible. In fact, in the arrangement of the curriculum, each student is called to make the study of the Bible itself one of his regular subjects throughout each year of his entire course. Another principle which is made the basis of the teaching is a recognition of the intimate relation of science and religion, and a recognition of the harmony of spiritual laws and physical or natural laws. It is the effort of the teachers to make plain the spiritual lessons which may be drawn from natural phenomena.
In the study of remedial agents, natural methods of treatment as opposed to the use of poisonous drugs are constantly emphasized, and much time is spent in the study of hydrotherapy, mechanotherapy, and electrotherapy.
The present-day tendency of medical authorities to stress the use of so-called preventive medicine, as distinguished from simply the treatment of disease, of course is right and rational; but in the teaching here, the great importance of personal habits in the prevention or in the production of the so-called degenerative567diseases, such as diseases of the heart, the blood vessels, the brain, and the kidneys, and in the cure of diseased conditions, is emphasized, as well as the duty of society to maintain conditions that will prevent the spread of contagious and infectious diseases.
One of the important reasons for the establishment of the school at Loma Linda, especially for the training of physicians, is that the young people there may obtain their medical training. There they will have every opportunity to maintain an active religious experience, and not be exposed to the temptations that are ordinarily associated with the companionship of a young man or woman in a medical college. It is recognized that the religious life depends largely upon religious activity; and efforts are made to provide the opportunities for doing missionary work, and the student is encouraged to take advantage of every such opportunity, during the years in which the studies are carried on.
FACILITIES
The school is furnished with all the facilities necessary in the training of a well equipped physician. The laboratory instruction is all given at Loma Linda, where a very large and complete equipment is maintained. The clinical subjects are taught largely in Los Angeles, sixty-two miles from Loma Linda, where large numbers of patients are available for teaching purposes. In addition, there is a well appointed hospital at Loma Linda, and other extensive clinical opportunities.
At the present time, plans are being elaborated to supply more extensive facilities for the educational work in Los Angeles. These are to consist of a hospital and dispensary building and a commodious home for workers and students. It is planned to arrange for each nurse in training at the College of Medical Evangelists, as well as medical students and medical evangelistic students, to spend a certain amount of time in gaining practical experience in medical missionary work in the city.
One of the advantages of the Loma Linda school is that in the sanitarium work and other associated lines, it is possible for the student, if necessity demands, to earn a considerable part of the means to pay his expenses during the years that he is in the school.
SUPPLYING THE FOREIGN FIELDS
Of the many students who have been at Loma Linda, some of whom have completed the regular courses, and others of whom have spent only one or two years in the school, the large majority are engaged in medical missionary work, and many are laboring in foreign fields. The following is an incomplete summary of the workers who have gone from Loma Linda, during the short existence of the institution, to various foreign fields, and who are still laboring in those fields: Burma, 1; China, 2; Korea, 2; Philippine Islands, 1; Japan, 5; Hawaiian Islands, 2; South America, 10; Jamaica, 1; St. Thomas, 2; Mexico, 1; West Africa, 1; South Africa, 10; India, 1; totaling 39.
Persons who know the political and social conditions in the great nations of the far East—China, India, etc.—realize that just at this time the fields there are white to the harvest; and there is no question but that those workers who are fitted to do medical work combined with evangelistic work are capable of doing more effective service in these countries than any other class of workers. It is the hope and belief of those who are acquainted with the work at Loma Linda and with the needs of the great field, that within the next few years, many hundreds shall go out from this place to carry the knowledge of the gospel to the regions beyond.
