Incorporated December 9, 1909, as part of the College of Medical Evangelists, the infant Loma Linda medical school, with its faculty of five family doctors, could not have been born into a colder legal climate. In 1910, the Abraham Flexner Report, financed by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, continued what the AMA’s Council on Medical Education had started in 1906. It promoted the closing of inadequate medical schools in the United States. Strict, new accreditation procedures graded each surviving school, and closed those that did not soon measure up. By 1932, authorities had closed a sobering 84 schools of medicine in the United States.
Years later, Dr. Edward Sutherland, who had attended medical school at the University of Tennessee, spoke of the upheaval: “They intended to see that only one medical college should exist in [each] state unless a university and a private medical school, then they would let two. But they would not allow more than two medical schools in the same state. They intended to bring the standard up. And I want to say that they did so because there was a great deal of cheap, mercenary business in medical schools. They'd even sell diplomas. Things were in horrible shape, and so they did a fine piece of cleansing.”
Accreditation authorities told CME administrators that it would be impossible for a new, poorly equipped, church-related school of medicine to measure up to these strict standards. In his book, For God and CME, Merlin L. Neff provides a valuable historical perspective: “In 1910 few Seventh-day Adventists comprehended what was happening in medical education in the United States. They saw little need to pour money into the construction of classrooms, laboratories, and hospitals. Church leaders knew of many physicians who, by taking short courses, had received the MD degree. Furthermore, it had been possible for a young man to be trained in medicine by any physician who would act as his preceptor. Some argued that the young people should take short courses in medical evangelism, as they did in ministerial training, to prepare them for foreign-mission service.
“[Now] high standards of training were suddenly demanded, and adequate laboratories and hospitals were declared essential for CME. Leaders in the North American Division [of the denomination] balked at appropriating the funds called for to carry on a medical college.”
On April 27, 1910, Ellen White wrote to John Burden, “We should have in various places, men of extraordinary ability, who have obtained their diplomas in medical schools of the best reputation who can stand before the world as fully qualified and legally recognized physicians. Let God-fearing men be wisely chosen to go through the training essential in order to obtain such qualifications.”
In the spring of 1910, Arthur G. Daniells, president of the General Conference, traveled to Loma Linda for a re-incorporation meeting to join the Loma Linda Sanitarium and the College of Medical Evangelists. Concerned that John Burden, its cofounder, would commit the Church to an overwhelming financial obligation, Pastor Daniells took “back-up” with him—Professor Homer Salisbury, Secretary of the Department of Education for the General Conference. The two men stopped in Chicago to visit Nathan P. Colwell, MD, Secretary of the American Medical Association Council on Medical Education. Colwell had been authorized to examine and rate medical schools and to enforce AMA requirements.
Hoping not to prejudice Colwell against Loma Linda, they identified themselves by name only. Deliberately they said nothing about Loma Linda or their church. They would do nothing to jeopardize the possibility of the denomination’s starting an AMA-accredited medical school. They simply asked what facilities would be needed to establish an acceptable medical college.
He said they would need a large campus, an adequate library, pharmacology and pathology laboratories, a number of classrooms, a 100-bed hospital, many specialists in each branch of medicine, and strong financial backing.
Daniells and Salisbury thanked Dr. Colwell and started to leave. Jumping to his feet, Colwell pointed at Daniells: “And you tell those people at Loma Linda these facts!”
"What makes you think we are from Loma Linda?" Daniells inquired.
"Because," Colwell answered, "Nobody in the world is so foolish as to think you can build and maintain a medical college without money, except you Adventists!"
"Well, Dr. Colwell, suppose we put it on anyway?" asked Daniells.
"You put it on," Colwell snapped, "and we’ll put it off. We are not going to have any more of these ‘one-horse’ medical schools in this country!"
What to do? Colwell’s “laundry list” looked very challenging.
First, on May 11, 1910, the Board of Trustees elected Wells A. Ruble, MD, medical secretary of the General Conference, as president of the medical college. Then they "put it on anyway," with a new corporation consolidating the Sanitarium and the College and their respective Boards of Trustees. How could they take such a bold step—virtually an act of defiance? The instruction from Ellen G. White, however, had been so definite that earlier the Committee on Plans voted that the new school be established on a broader and firmer basis. They recommended that the General Conference and the Union Conferences all give support to the project. The General Conference set the proposal before its Spring Council in April 1910.
To be continued…