Despite seemingly immovable obstacles, administration decided to follow the counsel that Seventh-day Adventists should have their own school of medicine. Church leaders then changed the school's name from “College of Evangelists” to “College of Medical Evangelists” (CME) and incorporated under the laws of the State of California on Thursday, December 9, 1909. The new corporation was to exist “for fifty years and for such further time as shall be allowed by law.” (CME became Loma Linda University on July 1, 1961.)
Members of the corporation (known as the Constituency) elected the Board. The Constituency included the executive committee of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, and the executive committees of the Pacific, North Pacific, Northern, Central, Southwestern, and Southern Union Conferences, plus the Boards of Trustees of the Paradise Valley, Glendale, and Loma Linda Sanitariums.
The fourth quarter 1909 issue of the campus newspaper, The Medical Evangelist, outlined the calendar and expenses for the medical school curriculum. The nine-month school year began about October 1 and ended in the third or fourth week of June. In each of the first three years, class and laboratory work ranged from twenty-five to twenty-seven hours per week. “This leaves enough time above what is needed for study so that the student may work from three to five hours daily, sufficient to meet the expense of board and room.” Students earned from ten to fifteen cents an hour. Tuition cost $75 a year, payable in three installments. A five-dollar discount rewarded those who paid in full at the beginning of the school year. Laboratory fees for the year were $20.
State law established CME’s admission requirements. The Association of American Medical Colleges set academic standards. Shortly after CME’s incorporation, the Pacific Union Conference met on January 25, 1910, at Mountain View, California, for its fifth biennial session. They decided that in order to support such an ambitious enterprise, church officials must be satisfied that they correctly understood the counsel from Mrs. Ellen G. White, the co-founder of the denomination. In a letter placed in Mrs. White’s hands the next day, they asked a very pertinent question: “Are we to understand, from what you have written concerning the establishment of a medical school at Loma Linda, that, according to the light you have received . . . we are to establish a thoroughly equipped medical school, the graduates from which will be able to take state board examinations and become registered, qualified physicians?”
Ellen White's equally specific reply went out the next day: “The light given me is [that] we must provide that which is essential to qualify our youth who desire to be physicians, so that they may intelligently fit themselves to be able to stand the examinations required to prove their efficiency as physicians. They should be taught to treat understandingly the cases of those who are diseased, so that the door will be closed for any sensible physician to imagine that we are not giving in our school the instruction necessary for properly qualifying young men and young women to do the work of a physician. . . . The medical school at Loma Linda is to be of the highest order. . . . [The church’s youth must] obtain a medical education that will enable them to pass the examinations required by law of all those who practice as regularly qualified physicians.”
Establishing such a school would require the broad-based financial support of the entire denomination. Pastor I. H. Evans, a vice president of the General Conference, spoke enthusiastically of advancing by faith. “We have before us. . .a plain, straightforward statement from Sister White, in regard to the establishment of a medical school. There is no guesswork about it; there is no equivocation; there is no false construction that need be put upon these words. The question is, Will we follow the counsel given?
“I can conjure up many reasons why at this time we are ill prepared to establish and operate a medical school. It is not hard for any man to say that we have not the money at hand. Any man need not be very wise to say, 'We do not know where we shall get medical men trained and qualified to take up this work.' But the question is, Will we establish this medical school, when the Lord has indicated so plainly our duty? I believe, brethren, if we step forward in the fear of God, and make an effort to establish this school, the Lord will help us and make the way clear.”
At the conclusion of this discussion, the question was called, and the vote of the delegates upon the recommendation under discussion was unanimous. At the request of the delegates, the question was then submitted to the whole house for their action, and a similar vote was cast.
During this meeting, the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists and the Pacific Union Conference assumed ownership of CME. Church members responded with a heart-felt enthusiasm that ensured united action on behalf of the new medical college. Still, “the rivers of difficulties were full and overflowing their banks,” as Dr. Percy T. Magan, an early administrator at Loma Linda, would later describe the situation. Indeed, none believed they had sufficient financial resources or talents to undertake the enterprise. Still, many believed God had shown them that the time was right. They responded to His call for the few resources they had. They believed He called the Church to take this leap of faith.
To be continued….