The College of Medical Evangelists (CME) began with just five physicians. Alfred Q. Shryock, MD, the sixth, joined the faculty within three weeks of its December 9, 1909, charter. All, however, were general practitioners—not a promising start for a school of medicine. This inauspicious beginning, however, is a continuing witness to the providential heritage of Loma Linda.
Dr. Shryock graduated from the American Medical Missionary College (AMMC) in Battle Creek, Michigan (1899), he was president of his senior class. His wife, Stella, completed nurses’ training at the Sanitarium before the couple married in 1899. Both were second-generation Adventists. Alfred, now a practicing physician, believed that it was more important to help people rather than to gain wealth. In 1900, after teaching for one year at AMMC, he accepted an invitation from the Washington Conference of Seventh-day Adventists to direct a church-owned hydrotherapy treatment unit in Seattle.
Alfred moved the hydrotherapy unit to a better location, appointed Stella as supervisor and receptionist, and eventually employed several other nurses and a “lady physician.” The unit flourished as it treated patients suffering from upper respiratory infections. Alfred also commuted by boat every two weeks to supervise a similar unit operated by a nurse in Bellingham, Washington. By 1908, Alfred Shryock had become somewhat prosperous. He had established a substantial family medicine practice, associated it with the hydrotherapy unit, and built a new home on Queen Anne Hill, a residential suburb of Seattle.
The Shryocks’ winter vacation took them and their two-year-old son, Harold, to Southern California. They wanted to visit some of the Seventh-day Adventist Sanitariums being developed there. Because of its controversial beginning, church members generally considered the Loma Linda Sanitarium to be of special interest, perhaps even somewhat sensational.
Most of the institution’s five physicians had been Alfred’s schoolmates at AMMC. They expressed their strong faith that the new institution was under a divine mandate. Then came the big news. They were about to organize a school of medicine. So, why don’t you, Alfred, join our faculty? They had based their plans on Ellen White's recent statement that "physicians are to receive their education here [at Loma Linda]."
Dr. George K. Abbott, president of both the Sanitarium and College, remembered that Alfred had had some experience teaching at AMMC and urged him to "come and join us." Specifically, he wanted Shryock to teach courses in histology (microscopic anatomy) and human embryology. Dr. Shryock also worked for Dr. A. B. Olson at AMMC as a student laboratory assistant for a course in histology.
On their way back to Seattle, Alfred rejected the idea of successfully starting a school of medicine in Loma Linda as an unrealistic hope. The very idea of a medical school was incredibly ambitious, considering that the Sanitarium was still struggling for its very existence. “I really don’t care to be affiliated,” he told Stella, “with a one-horse medical school.”
Nevertheless, the strongly motivated and persistent physicians at Loma Linda continued their appeals by mail. "We believe the plan to develop a school here for the training of gospel medical missionary evangelists is divinely ordained," they insisted. Although the sincerity of the Loma Linda physicians impressed the Shryocks, it did not persuade them to leave Seattle.
John Burden, the business manager at Loma Linda, offered Shryock a salary of $20 per week. When Alfred replied that he would be unable to meet his expenses on $20 per week, Burden replied that after due consideration he would offer $21 a week.
Finally, being conscientious, the Shryocks thought, "maybe the Lord's hand is in this." So they prayed for a sign. If God wanted them to move to Loma Linda, would He send a buyer for their new home on Queen Anne Hill? That certainly would be an impressive and useful sign. Alfred listed his property with a realtor on his way to work one morning. The new home sold before noon, and by sundown, that same day was in escrow. Providence had made it perfectly clear what direction the family’s future would take. At a cost of $148.10, Alfred Shryock moved his small family to Southern California and became Loma Linda’s sixth physician. Eventually, both he and his son Harold became Dean of the School of Medicine.