The distinctive feature of Seventh-day Adventist medical work is, or should be, that it is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. Our chief objective is clearly stated in the Spirit of prophecy to be the proclamation of the gospel and the salvation of souls.
"The way in which Christ worked was to preach the word, and to relieve suffering by miraculous works of healing. But I am instructed that we cannot now work in this way;for Satan will exercise his power by working miracles. God's servants to-day could not work by means of miracles; because spurious works of healing, claiming to be divine, will be wrought. For this reason the Lord has marked out a way in which His people are to carry forward a work of physical healing, combined with the teaching of the word. Sanitariums are to be established, and with these institutions are to be connected workers who will carry forward genuine medical missionary work."---Medical Ministry, p. 14.
This statement about miraculous healing and our medical work is very significant, and probably explains the relative infrequency of such miracles today. It also places a very heavy burden upon the Christian doctor, upon whom is laid the responsibility for physical healing. But it does even more; it gives him the responsibility of using God-given healing power for the purpose of bringing spiritual enlightenment. This is clearly stated on pages 27 and 28 of Medical Ministry: "The purpose of our health institutions is not first and foremost to be that of hospitals. The health institutions connected with the closing work of the gospel in the earth - stand for the great principles of the gospel in all its fullness."
To achieve such an objective calls for two principles to be followed closely in the establishment and operation of our health institutions. First, the workers connected with them must have a close experience with Christ, and be imbued with a zeal for souls. This is a personal day-to-day matter for each worker and is not a subject upon which any council can legislate, though the leadership can assist in encouraging and improving the spiritual atmosphere. On this point we are told:
"Physicians need a double portion of religion. Of men in any calling, physicians are most in need of clearness of mind, purity of spirit, and that faith which works by love and purifies the soul, that they may make the right impression upon all who come within the sphere of their influence."—/bid., p. 31.
Second, there must be the closest and most constant co-operation and counsel among those responsible for the operation of these institutions. To reach the great purpose for which our medical work was planned, physicians, ministers, and educators must lay careful plans. They must pool their knowledge and efforts, prayer-fully studying the divine pattern, in working toward a complete medical missionary program. This must be a program that involves the active interest and co-operation of all the leaders and employees, whatever their race, background, or line of work.
"No line is to be drawn between the genuine medical missionary work and the gospel ministry. These two must blend. They are not to stand apart as separate lines of work. They are to be joined in an inseparable union, even as the hand is joined to the body." —Ibid., p. 250.
"I want to tell you that when the gospel ministers and the medical missionary workers are not united, there is placed on our church the worst evil that can be placed there. Our medical missionaries ought to be interested in the work of our conferences, and our conference workers ought to be as much interested in the work of our medical missionaries."—/bid., p. 241.
These are strong statements. It would be difficult to misunderstand them unintentionally. Furthermore, this co-operation, unity, and interest is a two-way proposition, involving the active interest, initiative, and action of both classes of workers. Carry this unity a step further. Since both the ministerial and the medical phases of the work involve education in the training and preparation of young workers, the teachers and educational leaders must be included. I do not believe that such an inclusion does violence to the principles of this organization or to the statements just read from the Spirit of prophecy.
Closer Tie-in of Medical Workers and Ministry
With this foundation laid, the question arises, Have these principles been carefully adhered to in the building up of the work? Or have we tended to separate ourselves into thought-tight departmental compartments of activity, between which there has been a minimum of integration and co-ordination? Although as a medical worker I cannot speak with any assurance regarding the co-ordination between the evangelistic and educational phases, I do feel somewhat more competent on the subject of the integration of the medical work with the other two phases. It is my firm conviction that a recital of past and present policies and tendencies leaves something to be desired in this matter. It is the purpose of this paper to present that problem to you and to make a few tentative suggestions for the correction of the situation. It is my personal desire to see our medical institutions, workers, and their work, more closely tied in with the evangelistic program, and in closer co-operation with the educational scheme, for the purpose of making the medical work one of the most effective means of preaching the gospel. This is the method that was used so effectively by Christ. We can do no better than to follow His example.
The medical institutions of the Southern African Division present the greatest evangelistic opportunities available to us today. Where else can an evangelist find from thirty to one hundred inpatients available for Bible studies, prayer, and other spiritual ministrations, seven days a week the year round? Where else can he find from thirty to two hundred outpatients six days a week, who have come for physical help but who are ready to accept spiritual overtures, and to whom he can give or sell our truth-filled literature ? I maintain that there are no other opportunities so great for preaching the gospel as those in our hospitals, dispensaries, and leper colonies.
Multitudinous Duties of Mission Doctor
One point should be made clear Planning for the evangelization of this large group of people is a responsibility that rests upon the ministerial leaders as well as upon the medical workers. As a medical worker I find myself in an anomalous position. Having come to Africa out of a desire to do medical missionary work, I am forced into such a burden of medical and administrative duties that my reason for being here has almost faded into a spectral fantasy.
It may not be amiss to list a few of the multitudinous details that occupy the mission doctor's time so fully that his reason for becoming a missionary is lost sight of. Aside from daily attendance upon the inpatients, the outpatients, the surgical operations, the abnormal maternity cases, and the supervision of the laboratory, there are the other activities which, although less strictly medical, are certainly not evangelistic. They vary from the business correspondence, which in these days of planned economies reaches almost mountainous proportions, to the supervision of the grounds and buildings, and their repairs, and all new building operations ; the parceling out of daily tasks to the African day laborers, outstation and dispensary trips, and other hospital business trips. Then there are also the duties most of us have as members of the hospital boards and the local and union committees. These last items alone occupy nearly one calendar month in my yearly program.
Is it any wonder that I find myself in the position of that other servant of God, who, in time of war, was called upon to guard a prisoner? This son of a prophet later had to report to the king, "And as thy servant was busy here and there, he was gone." i Kings 20:40. May God be with us as we plan to arrange the medical missionary program so that such an experience will not continue to be ours. Unless some changes are made, it will one day be necessary to give the same report on the souls that have passed through the doors of our institutions.
I feel constrained to mention another difficulty that is not always understood. Being a doctor or a nurse does not ensure that those of the medical profession have had any training in evangelism, the giving of Bible studies, or in church organization and administration. Very few of us have. Those of us who come from Adventist homes and have obtained all or most of our education in denominational schools are in the most advantageous position, but the advantage may be slight. Such a worker may have taken a Bible class each year, but without any special training in evangelistic and theological lines. If this is true of those educated in our own schools, how about those who attended secular schools until starting their premedical or medical training? Or those who come from non-Adventist homes?
Can you wonder that with a full medical and administrative program, such workers are reluctant to accept other responsibilities about which they know so little, unless expert assistance is at hand? Would you ask a young woman to become a Bible instructor in an evangelical campaign without knowing whether she had had any training or experience in giving Bible studies? Or would you ask a man to conduct such a campaign who had never received evangelistic training and had never assisted in such an enterprise?
This is not an appeal for medical workers to be relieved of spiritual responsibilities. On the contrary. It is an appeal for our ministerial brethren to be long suffering and understanding of our lack of training and experience on such matters. What is more important, it is an appeal to have workers associated with us who can give us this much-needed counsel and guidance along spiritual lines. We have come to the mission field because we are genuinely interested in medical missionary work, but that does not immediately make us accomplished preachers, evangelists, church elders, administrators, or Bible instructors.
Some may ask, "Why not arrange for an evangelists' training school for our medical workers ?" It would be a good plan. I would favor it. There is only one caution. Any plan that expects the medical workers to take an appreciably larger share in the evangelical program must also provide for a corresponding increase in the number of medical workers. The reasons are obvious.
The Southern African Division at the present time operates seven hospitals in which doctors are employed,- and two others with no doctor in charge. Three other hospitals are in varying stages of emergence from a condition similar to that of this earth prior to the day when the Spirit of God moved upon it—without form and void. With the exception of Nokuphila Hospital, the seven institutions have one doctor each on their staff, though it is planned to add a second doctor to the staffs of three others as soon as recrvits can be obtained. This is the result of the policy instituted by the General Conference at an Autumn Council two or three years ago. The corps of graduate nurses in these institutions varies from one to three. The hospital capacities vary from twenty-five to seventy-five.
I remember that at one time the matron of one of our hospitals received a communication from the General Conference Medical Department as the result of information supplied them on a questionnaire. In this letter was set forth the minimum standards carefully calculated by the United States War Manpower Commission for the adequate care of hospital patients. According to these figures, the minimum number of nurses required for the volume of work in the hospital in question was far in excess of the number on its staff either then or now. In addition, that hospital had a large outpatient department and operated a nurses' training school. But what is more important, it was supposed to be a mission hospital doing medical missionary work, yet its staff was inadequate to provide the purely medical care of the inpatients alone, to say nothing of the outpatients and the operation of the training school.
This illustration is typical of the work in this division, though this particular hospital is somewhat more adequately staffed and equipped than most. When the staffing of our medical institutions falls so lamentably far short of the recognized minimum standards for medical care alone, even when allowances are made for a lower standard of care for Africans than for Europeans, how can we expect the workers to spend more than a few minutes a day in ministering to the spiritual needs of the souls that have been delivered into their hands?
—To be concluded
