Heritage Snapshot: Part 111

In 1909, many thought it would be impossible to successfully start a school of medicine in Loma Linda. A little-known story illustrates the dilemma. In 1910, after much soul-searching and discussion, Percy T. Magan, a middle-aged minister and teacher and his close friend and colleague, Edward A. Sutherland, decided to attend medical school together at the University of Tennessee. Both legends in education and professional partners for 28 years, they became physicians on June 6, 1914. From strong feelings about his personal experience, Sutherland told Magan that he had decided to share his insights and wisdom about medical education with Mrs. Ellen G. White, co-founder of the College of Medical Evangelists in Loma Linda. “I'm going to tell [her] some things that undoubtedly she doesn't know anything about in running a medical school.” This statement illustrates Sutherland’s recognition of Ellen White’s continuing prominence in developing the School of Medicine in Loma Linda. It also illustrates his knowledge of the sorry state of medical education in America. At that time the Abraham Flexner Report, sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, had intended to improve the quality of medical education in America by eventually closing 84 inadequate schools. Sutherland sincerely felt that it would be impossible for the Seventh-day Adventist Church to develop an acceptable school of medicine in Loma Linda. High standards would surely be insurmountable. He told Mrs. White that developing an approved medical school here simply couldn't be done. CME didn't have the money to put up the necessary buildings, a fact demonstrated the previous year when it tried to build its first hospital. Furthermore, it didn't have a competent faculty, and it couldn't get one. Therefore, Loma Linda could not possibly succeed. Every time Sutherland shared his wisdom and delineated what he believed it would take to belong to the American Medical Association, Mrs. White responded according to her providential insights. She stated that the Lord had shown her that the College of Medical Evangelists would become one of the finest schools of medicine in the land. She insisted that CME's graduates would someday make the best physicians. Indeed, they would go to the ends of the earth. Still, Sutherland wouldn't give up. “Then I would get my breath and I'd meet her again the next day and I'd start to tell her something new, try to go over the same thing that I did in a more impressive way, but I never got anywhere.” Mrs. White held her ground, always with the same response: that CME was going to be a success, that the Lord had "planted it," and that He would make it one of the strong institutions of the world. Loma Linda University School of Medicine has now graduated more physicians who have gone overseas as medical missionaries than any other school of medicine in the world. In addition, the Loma Linda University Overseas Heart Surgery Team has performed more heart surgeries in more countries than has any other similar organization. As a highly specialized group of heart surgeons, it has now performed surgery in Pakistan, India, Thailand, Taiwan, Greece, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Kenya, Zimbabwe, the People’s Republic of China, Chile, North Korea, and the Kingdom of Nepal. Wherever they go, they either initiate or upgrade open-heart surgery programs. Team members travel to countries where heart surgery has rarely, if ever, been performed. The team includes all the specialists and technologists required for the most delicate surgery. Careful preparation has resulted in surgery success equal to that in the best surgery centers in the United States. In 1970 the team set up a heart surgery program in Athens, Greece, at the 1,500-bed Evangelismos Hospital. During the first five years, more than 800 patients underwent heart surgery. In 1976 the Saudi Arabian Department of Defense invited the team to make two trips to Hamis Mu shayt, where they conducted the first heart surgery ever performed in Saudi Arabia—86 surgeries in four months. The Royal Saudi Arabian Air Force transported patients from all over Saudi Arabia for the life-saving surgery. During the past 20 years, Loma Linda University has sent 1,000 people, including many graduates of the its School of Medicine, to start and manage Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital in Hangzhou, China, an international facility which has grown from 400 beds to more than 1,300. The Chinese government has sent 12,000 officials, including many physicians, to this hospital, to learn “Western style medicine.” In the center of Loma Linda University’s basic science quadrangle is a stylized mission globe with an underwater mosaic of the world at its base. Engraved around the edge are listed all Loma Linda University students, graduates, and employees who have served abroad at least one year. On Sunday, May 29, 2011, during its 100th anniversary celebration, Loma Linda University School of Medicine graduated Reiker Schultz, its 10,000th graduate. That was 2,000 more than any other school of medicine in the Western United States. Although announced in advance, nobody but School of Medicine administration knew who would become the 10,000th graduate. “I was utterly shocked and in a daze,” Dr. Schultz admitted. “In retrospect, however, the experience gave me a bigger burden to do something special with my life and my career in order to honor the School of Medicine.” Dr. Schultz’s grandfather, Frank Richard Schultz, MD, graduated from CME in 1940. His father, Richard Frank Schultz, MD, graduated from the School of Medicine in 1974. Following his residency, in Cincinnati, Ohio, Dr. Schultz and his wife plan to serve abroad. “Mission service is the real reason I came to medical school,” he explained. “I want to do something ‘real’ with my life that involves service to others.”