Creatively, by 1912, the Loma Linda College of Medical Evangelists (CME) had started providing limited but vital clinical experience. President Wells A. Ruble, MD, reported that members of the third-year class in the School of Medicine had already started seeing patients in physicians’ offices, treatment rooms, and in the Loma Linda Sanitarium wards, where they had received valuable experience. Students also received clinical experience at the Glendale Sanitarium, and expressed enthusiasm over the experience thus gained. However, Ruble emphasized that although the medical inspectors had been satisfied with entrance requirements, curriculum, faculty, laboratory and equipment, library, and medical periodicals, they emphasized the need of a 100-bed hospital with medical and surgical clinic rooms as the least that would satisfy their demand. He then outlined his vision for the level of science to be taught at CME: “Last but not least, a clearly defined policy should be outlined by the Board which shall leave no question in important matters as to whether this school is to be conducted on sound scientific principles.”
Later, members of the Constituency not only voted to solicit $15,000 to build a clinical hospital, but also pledged $3,375 for its construction.
For several days, Mrs. Ellen G. White, the institution’s co-founder, had been unable to attend the councils. On April 4, 1912, on a drive, her son, W. C. White, gave her a comprehensive report regarding Board discussions. That afternoon, standing by his mother’s side, he reported the results of their conversation to the Board: “…I told her briefly the story of our hospital plans. I spoke first of the necessity of medical students coming in contact with sick people before they go forth alone to take the lives of men and women in their hands. I spoke of the fact that the State licensing boards are demanding that those who ask for permission to practice medicine shall have an experience in dealing with sick people before they go out alone to bear responsibilities.
“Then I spoke of the various plans we had before us; that we had sometimes thought of erecting a large hospital and endeavoring to give our students all of this experience here, that sometimes we had planned to take them to Los Angeles and let them get their experience there, and that sometimes we had planned to do part of the work here and part in Los Angeles.
“Mother spoke up very cheerfully and promptly, and said that that was the better way to do—part of the work here, and part in Los Angeles…and repeatedly spoke her approval of that plan.”
Because of his participation in the founding of the institution, John Burden's role changed dramatically. On April 3, 1912, he became Financial Agent of CME. He also retained the office of chaplain, treasurer, and business superintendent. In addition to these responsibilities, on April 9, 1912, the Board requested that Burden spend a considerable portion of his time in the field telling the story of Loma Linda and helping them raise money for improvements. The institution needed to raise $50,000 for a new heating plant, the proposed hospital, a dining room for helpers, and a suitable business office. During Burden’s absence from Loma Linda, George Irwin, president of the Board of Trustees, who had moved to Loma Linda for his fatherly influence, assumed Burden’s chaplaincy responsibilities.
To illustrate Ellen G. White's intimate involvement with and oversight of CME, G. A. Irwin, W. C. White, and E. E. Andross sought Mrs. White’s approval for the new arrangements. She responded: “I do not see anything in it but what seems to be wise. The work at Loma Linda has grown to be very large. It is broadening all the time, and there must be a sufficiency of workers, who will labor together understandingly, in order to carry this great work…. This plan seems to me to open the way for a unity of working with a variety of talent.”
In order to provide clinical experience to student physicians, CME desperately needed to build its own hospital as soon as possible. On May 27, 1912, the Committee on Hospital reported: “On account of the necessity for clinical opportunity for the College next year, it was moved by G. K. Abbott, seconded by W. D. Salisbury, to construct a hospital for clinical purposes, consisting in general of a clinical part 46 feet by 72 feet, and two wings to be used as wards; the north wing to be built as soon as funds can be raised for the purpose. The entire hospital shall be one story, and the clinical portion at least constructed of concrete. Carried.”
To expedite providing increasingly vital clinical experience, the Board recommended on May 31, 1912, that physicians in the Sanitarium make use of students in their fourth and fifth years of study as office assistants, to provide “as thorough a practical experience as is consistent with the highest ideals of medical ethics…." They voted that any physician who had an important case could conduct a clinic, as arranged with management. They also voted to arrange for fourth- and fifth-year student physicians to become interns in sister sanitariums for two or more weeks per year and as much as possible during vacations. Furthermore, they authorized management to arrange for students to receive clinical experience locally at the San Bernardino County Hospital, in San Bernardino, and at Patton State Hospital, in Highland.
It is interesting to compare institutional challenges and Board actions from more than 100 years ago with today’s $1.5 billion Campus Transformation to provide education, research, and clinical facilities for future generations of Loma Linda patients and healthcare professionals.