Nurses' Workshop in Washington

Several representatives from the Minis­terial Association were present on the first Thursday of the workshop on organization and administration of Seventh-day Adventist schools of nursing, held in Takoma Park, May 19-28. This was a meeting of the directors of our schools of nursing in the United States, conducted by the medical department of the General Conference.

R. A. Anderson conducted the devotional service in the morning, and the rest of the day was given over to a panel discussion on the vital topic, "Presenting the Gospel in S.D.A. Medical Institutions." The meeting was held in one end of the reading room of the Theological Seminary library, which had been partitioned off. It came at the time of the seminary inter-term, when no classes were being conducted, and thus the library was free for use. Several long tables had been assembled in the shape of a large U, and the various directors sat at these tables, with the main speakers at the end.

In these quarters, so conducive to free inter­change of thought, a lively discussion ensued during the course of the day. The speakers of the panel were all from near-by Washington Sanitarium. C. E. Westphal, chaplain, intro­duced the speakers of the panel at the morning meeting. First, E. H. Emmerson, pastor of the sanitarium church, spoke briefly on "The Ex­pediency of the Hour." Then Olive Bennett, a supervisor, read a paper on "God's Divine Pur­pose for Our Medical Work."

Next, Mrs. Elga Coberly, also a supervisor, told a most interesting story of her experiences while employed for a time in a Catholic hospital in California. She showed how persistently Catholics try to convert people who come to their hospitals, and to what lengths they will go, even to shifting all the beds in a ward to another ward, if necessary, in order to have one Catholic 'communicant in each ward. As she went on with her amazing recital, we were led to see that in a Catholic institution the sisters and priests are far more concerned over the spiritual welfare of their patients than their physical welfare. Should we lag far behind in our zeal?

Bess Ninaj, who is both a nurse and a Bible instructor, related a number of experiences that she has observed in her Bible work at the Washington Sanitarium, and gave many valu­able pointers on the spiritual ministry in our medical institutions—how to find opportunities for Bible work, training student nurses to assist in soul winning, guiding principles, and cau­tions. She quoted freely from the Spirit of prophecy, and distributed several pages of quo­tations that she had compiled from this source. (Copies of this compilation may be obtained on request.)

This finished the forenoon panel discussion. The afternoon panel was in the form of a guided discussion period, with Louise Kleuser acting as chairman. Consideration was given to the part both student nurse and graduate, as well as the Christian physician, can play in winning patients to Christ. Mrs. Fern Forshee had the topic, "Fitting the Student Nurse Into the Soul-winning Program" ; and Dorothy Sampson discussed, "Finding Opportunities for the Graduate Nurse." Dr. De Voe Meade gave a short talk on "Religion as a Therapy."

After these talks the meeting was thrown open for discussion, and the representatives from the various sanitariums were invited, and urged, to speak on the subject. In order that none might be^. missed, each was called by name.

Director after director told how soul-winning activities were carried on in each institution. The story varied a bit from time to time, but all had something encouraging to tell.

There was not time enough on Thursday to consider the topic regarding employment of non-Adventist workers, so this was held over until the following Monday night. Because of the crit­ical shortage of workers there have been in­stances where nonchurch members have been employed in some of our sanitariums. There was a very constructive discussion on the question of our relationship to such workers. After review­ing some of the writings of the Spirit of proph­ecy, the consensus was that it would be far better not to employ nonchurch members, because of the subversive influences they might bring in among the other workers.

On Tuesday Dr. J. Wayne McFarland, editor of Life and Health, spoke to the group on "The Sanitarium as a Community Entering Wedge." His speech was preserved for us by a wire re­corder, and will appear in a later number of THE MINISTRY. Much of the discussion in the Thursday meeting was stenographically re­ported, and this will also appear. We have so­licited the contributions of the main speakers, so altogether we hope to have complete cover­age of all the high points to pass on to our read­ers in the months to come.

MABLE H. TOWERY. [Office Editor, THE MINISTRY.]