Heritage Snapshot: Part 204

LOMA LINDA >> Jerald C. Nelson, MD, was born August 12, 1930 in Oakland, California. He graduated from what is now Glendale Adventist Academy in 1949 and Pacific Union College, Angwin, California, in 1953. Touring with the college band, playing clarinet and saxophone, highlighted his college education. Dr. Nelson graduated from the College of Medical Evangelists in Loma Linda, California in 1957 and completed his one-year internship at the Los Angeles County General Hospital in 1958. Between 1958 and 1961 Dr. Nelson took a residency in Internal Medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, which led to a one-year fellowship in Endocrinology, also at the Mayo Clinic. He joined the Los Angeles faculty of the Loma Linda University School of Medicine in 1962 and was heavily involved in the consolidation of the School of Medicine in Loma Linda. In fact, in 1964, he was one of the first to move into temporary medical offices in one of the old cottages behind the Loma Linda Sanitarium and Hospital on the hill. In 1969 and 1970, Dr. Nelson undertook a National Institutes of Health Special Research Fellowship at Harbor/UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, California, and between 1973 and 1975, postgraduate studies in Radiation Physics, Biology and Safety at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In 1970, he founded an endocrine laboratory at Loma Linda University that conducted all of the early hormone assays that were becoming available at that time. Between 1971 and 1977, Dr. Nelson directed the Endocrine Fellowship Program at the Loma Linda University School of Medicine. Between 1975 and 1977, he was Chief of the Section of Endocrinology and Metabolism. Since 1982, he has been Professor of Medicine and Pathology in the School of Medicine. His greatest career satisfaction has come from teaching student and resident physicians, fellows and graduate students in the University’s PhD program. Dr. Nelson has earned five Board Certifications: 1. The National Board of Medical Examiners—July 9, 1958 2. The California State Board of Medical Examiners—March 9, 1961 3. The American Board of Internal Medicine—September 11, 1964 4. The Subspecialty Board in Endocrinology & Metabolism—October 17, 1972 5. The American Board of Nuclear Medicine—October 27, 1976. On October 16, 1990, Dr. Nelson received a patent for inventing a novel equilibrium dialysis cell for separating free hormones from protein-bound hormones in laboratory work. In doing so, he became one of the few members of the School of Medicine faculty to be awarded a United States patent. His invention was an outgrowth of his work with the Nichols Institute, an advanced subspecialty testing laboratory that conducted advanced diagnostic tests that ordinary clinical laboratories were unable to perform. Using a semi-permeable membrane, his invention makes the analysis of free hormones more accurate. Dr. Nelson is now Emeritus Professor, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine.