The Loma Linda Hospital and Dispensary by W. A. RUBLE, M. D., President

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 14, 1914

The Loma Linda Hospital and Dispensary

By W. A. RUBLE, M. D., President

ONE of the latest acquisitions to the facilities of the Loma Linda College of Medical Evangelists is the new hospital. This is a solid concrete building capable of accommodating seventy patients. There are eighteen private and semi-private rooms, four ten-bed wards, and five screened wards for fever patients. The front section consists of surgical rooms, a clinic room, and two necessary offices.

The hospital was opened for patients Nov. 1, 1913, and there have been about twenty patients in the institution continuously since that date. There has

been little effort made to fill the hospital with patients unless they could pay sufficient for their maintenance to meet the actual expense. There are many poor people, of our own members as well as others, who are applying to enter, but no provision has been made to meet their expense.

Endowed Beds

Some provision should be made whereby these worthy poor could be admitted both for their own physical welfare and spiritual improvement and for experience for the medical students who are here in preparation for medical missionary work.

There are many persons among us who are abundantly able to endow a bed, which would make it possible to keep one poor person in the hospital all the time. It would cost four hundred dollars annually to endow one of these beds. We should have twenty-five beds thus endowed. Where are the liberal ones among us who desire to do some missionary work by in this way providing for the support and medical care of poor people, under the influence of the truth? Could there be better philanthropic work than this?

Dispensary

Another most important acquisition to the college the past year is the dispensary in Los Angeles. A large storeroom on a busy street in one of the best parts of the city as far as dispensary work is concerned, has been rented and fitted up and equipped for dispensary practice for the medical students. There are from twenty-five to fifty persons in attendance at the dispensary daily. Some of these are poor, but many who come are of the better class. Some of the public-school teachers bring their students to the place for examinations and treatments; especially children from the schools who need eye, ear, nose, and throat examinations, are coming in increasing numbers.

Hospital Privileges in Los Angeles

Increasing opportunities are coming to the college from the large county hospital in Los Angeles. Two medical schools in the city provide themselves with almost all the hospital experience for their students in this hospital, where there are nearly a thousand patients, and still there is much clinical material unused. Already our students are having two days a week from two to four hours a day in surgical clinics, and two days a week, two hours a day, in medical clinics, under our own instructors. The Glendale Sanitarium is also furnishing some good opportunities to our students for experience. Excellent opportunity is thus enjoyed by our students in clinical lines.

Our Patient Practice

A feature in the Los Angeles end of the college that should not be overlooked is the opportunity for treatment in the homes of the people. Here the students can give the people treatments by our own methods. Unlimited practice in obstetrical and other lines is thus offered.

In many ways the college facilities have been improved during the year, until at the present time excellent opportunities are furnished by the school for the preparation of our students for medical work.

Evangelistic Experience

Among the most valuable opportunities offered to the students are the openings for house-to-house medical missionary work. This has been entered into earnestly by the students thus far, and good work has been done.

The next school term opens about September 17. Those desiring to enter next fall should open correspondence with the college at once. Some who have one or two subjects in preparatory work to finish before entering may have opportunity to do so at some of our colleges, or here at Loma Linda during next summer. If there are students desiring such summer courses, they should make application for the same immediately.

W. A. RUBLE, M. D., President.