Ralph J. Thompson Jr., was born on January 27, 1928, at the White Memorial Hospital in Los Angeles.
He attended elementary school in Huntington Park and Lynwood, California, and studied premed at La Sierra College.
From his childhood, he knew he would become a physician because his father was a physician as were many of his close relatives. He entered the Loma Linda College of Medical Evangelists in 1946 and in 1948 married Carolyn Pierce, a CME nursing student. The Thompsons eventually had two sons and a daughter.
Ralph graduated from CME in 1950 but became a member of the Class of 1951.
In those days graduates of the School of Medicine received their MD degrees after an additional year of internship.
From 1953 to 1955, Dr. Thompson served in the United States Air Force as a junior surgeon at Eielson Air Force Base; a Strategic Air Command Base about 27 miles from Fairbanks, Alaska.
He then took a five-year residency in general surgery at the Los Angeles County General Hospital and spent another year studying cancer surgery at the Memorial Center for Cancer and Allied Diseases in New York City. Dr. Thompson returned to CME in 1961, just in time to participate in the consolidation of the School of Medicine in Loma Linda. In fact, he became one of many “sounding boards” Dean David B. Hinshaw, Sr., MD, used to help make major decisions regarding the consolidation. It was a time of much turmoil and opposition.
But because he felt that God was leading the School to Loma Linda, Dr. Thompson decided to support the consolidation.
He eventually talked with others known to oppose the 1962 decision and suggested that they also move. Two of the urologists he talked with, Roger W. Barnes, MD, and Henry L. Hadley, MD, who both had thriving practices in Glendale, California, eventually came to Loma Linda, leading Dr. Thompson to feel that he had at least a small part in encouraging “those two excellent men to come out here.” Because Dr. Barnes, grandfather and namesake of School of Medicine Dean H. Roger Hadley, MD, was a classmate of his father, he was like an uncle to Ralph. Dr. Barnes was an important person in Dr. Thompson’s life.
In July 1964 Drs. Thompson and Hinshaw moved from Los Angeles to join Bruce Branson, MD, in Loma Linda. Together the three surgeons started the Department of Surgery in one of the cottages on the hill. It was an exciting, but difficult time. Seeing the new University Hospital under construction off to the southwest helped them survive emotionally.
Dr. Thompson believes that the move to Loma Linda was providentially guided not only in the logistics of the School of Medicine’s future but also in the timing.
In 1965 the United States government implemented President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Medicare plan, which not only helped the institution attract additional faculty but also survive financially. Dr. Thompson considers his involvement with the institution during the consolidation of the School of Medicine in Loma Linda and since to have been a privilege.
He believes God lead the institution then and continues to lead. He acknowledges challenges for the future but is confident that circumstances will work out for the best.