Medical ministry misconceptions

Patients in an Adventist facility should find an atmosphere found nowhere else

G. Gordon Hadley, M. D. is the director of the Health and Temperance department of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

 

Adventist hospitals have seen their day." "With all the recent advances in medicine and health we no longer have any thing unique to offer to the world." "Our hospitals can operate just as well with non-Adventist staff as with Adventist personnel." "All medical work should pay its way."

These are just samples of some of the statements I hear concerning our health and temperance work. What is the truth? Do Seventh-day Adventists still have something unique to offer to the world?

The Spirit of Prophecy gives special emphasis to the health and temperance work. "The medical missionary work has never been presented to me in any other way than as bearing the same relation to the work as a whole as the arm does to the body. The gospel ministry is an organization for the proclamation of the truth and the carrying forward of the work for sick and well. This is the body, the medical missionary work is the arm, and Christ is the head over all. Thus the matter has been presented to me." 1

What is meant by medical ministry, health and temperance, and similar phrases? A study of the Spirit of Prophecy shows five areas of emphasis in the phrase "right arm."

Medical missionary phrases

1. Sanitariums—Some think of the health message as sanitariums, such as Battle Creek. They suggest that the original sanitariums were not acute healthcare facilities but were limited to conditioning centers and provided an environment for lifestyle changes. Historically, our sanitariums did spend much time and effort in health education, but these centers also took care of very sick people.

Dr. John Harvey Kellogg actually coined the word sanitarium. He was also a very active surgeon. Ellen White states that "sanitariums are needed, in which successful medical and surgical work can be done."2 These institutions were to be established in the centers of the world, and Ellen White emphasized that they were to promote educational and evangelistic programs. "Never are we to lose sight of the great object for which our sanitariums are established—the advancement of God's closing work in the earth."3

2. Health education and lifestyle changes—Our institutions and medical people through practice and teaching should be revealing to their patients a better way of life: encouraging a change in lifestyle, cutting out the harmful, and adding new health practices. The emphasis is on the eight natural remedies: air, sunlight, trust in divine power, exercise, water, abstinence from harmful practices, rest, and diet. Again Ellen White admonishes, "We must educate, educate, educate, pleasantly and intelligently. ... As the sick are brought into touch with the Life-giver their faculties of mind and body will be renewed. But in order for this to be, they must practice self-denial and be temperate in all things. Thus only can they be saved from physical and spiritual death and restored to health."4

3. Public health and preventive medicine—Better living standards and public health measures such as better water supply, vaccinations, and eliminating occupational hazards have greatly increased the life span throughout the world. Health education (No. 2) deals primarily with individual health while this one deals more with community health and the role of government.

4. Temperance — "Through the temptation to indulge appetite, Adam and Eve first fell from their high, holy, and happy estate. And it is through the same temptation that the race have become enfeebled."5 We need to promote temperance —the giving up of things that are harmful and taking on things that are good—much more vigorously than in the past. In many areas of the world our temperance message is the most important part of our work and can make an entry where our other methods are refused.

5. Acute health care—This is taking care of the sick and the wounded. Physicians' and dentists' offices, clinics, dispensaries, and hospitals, whether they be for primary, secondary, or tertiary care, are all present-day examples of health care. No one questions the importance of care for the sick and suffering. Christ spent more time doing this than any other ministry. However, this is only one part of medical missionary work and not necessarily the most important.

One will find in the Spirit of Prophecy that the expressions "medical missionary work," "temperance," "health reform," "health," as well as "sanitariums," are used interchangeably as phrases describing the right arm of the message. Thus the health and temperance work is an essential part of the three angels' messages —the message for this time.

There is more written in the Spirit of Prophecy "in the field of health than on any other single topic of counsel."6 The importance of this work is emphasized over and over again. However, it has not reached, and is not reaching, its potential. "The gospel of health has able advocates, but their work has been made very hard because so many ministers, presidents of conferences, and others in positions of influence have failed to give the question of health reform its proper attention."7

This lack of belief in what the health work can accomplish is caused primarily by five major misconceptions.

Misconceptions of health work

1. Health-care institutions are no longer needed— Some feel that the relief of suffering is not an important part of the health message. It is urged that we spend our time in teaching people a better way of life (preventive medicine) than healing people (curative medicine).

There is no doubt that some of the most important changes will be made by public-health and preventive-medicine measures. Smoking is one of the most, if not the most, important causes of disease today. In many developing countries smoking is a bigger problem than it is in developed countries. Overpopulation and pollution also create great health problems, especially in the developing countries. Public health and preventive medicine must have an impact on these problems.

However, there is still a strong need for acute health care. People need to know that someone will take care of them when they are seriously ill or injured. When they are sick or hurting, they are easier to reach. We need all members of the health and temperance team; while we need the emphasis on temperance and public health, we also must care for sick people. We need to integrate the health and temperance message in evangelism and education. The various aspects of health should be a basic part of every church's activities.

I saw clearly demonstrated the importance of acute health care when I worked in a rural area of Afghanistan. I was part of a team helping to start a new medical school. People needed preventive medicine, but it was impossible to reach them with it until they knew there was somebody who took care of such things as complicated births, gunshot wounds, and acute intestinal obstructions. When the people realized there were facilities and competent people for such care, they became receptive to health education and preventive care.

Christ met people and took care of their most immediate needs. Many times He met their curative needs before He dealt with spiritual matters.

2. Medical training is too sophisticated— Some feel that medical science is too sophisticated and that the mission work does not need highly trained medical personnel. All we need is basic health-care workers, they say.

There is no substitute for good care. A perforated peptic ulcer, a fractured bone, a ruptured uterus, or a stab wound, whether in an isolated village area or in a modern city, has to have a certain level of care to restore the patient. In the mission field the best-trained people almost always do better than the lesser-trained people. The mission field needs the best. The nurse, technician, or physician who has had many years of skilled academic training is far better equipped to adapt when there is no X-ray machine, no lab oratory work, no assistants, and no help that he or she can depend on.

I saw this point vividly demonstrated in the area described above. The team I worked with included some highly trained sophisticated surgeons, nurses, and other professionals. With crude facilities, these highly trained workers saved lives where less well-trained per sons would have failed.

In the training of health-care workers, CAT scanners, sophisticated laboratory equipment, and other modern diagnostic tools train students in physiological principles more efficiently than older, less scientific methods. The better we understand the mechanism of disease, and the better we understand pathology and physiology, the better we adapt to the challenges of a new field.

In the early Christian church the two most highly educated people were Paul and Luke. They were the ones who went as foreign missionaries.

3. Our best days in health and temperance are in the past—New scientific discoveries tend to support all we have learned in the Spirit of Prophecy. Life style changes that we have advocated are becoming more and more popular. Some say that people may decline entering health fields in the future because it will not be as lucrative; therefore, we will not need so many health professionals. Nothing could be further from the truth. If the economics of medicine do change, it may well be easier to attract people into it for the right reasons. We need health-care professionals who really care about their patients and who will comfort them when they are in serious trouble.

For every door that closes overseas a new door seems to open. We have better opportunities now in largely unentered countries than we have had in the past. Though we cannot mention specific areas here, we have requests to be involved in places not thought possible a few years ago. Our most serious problems now concern lack of funds and adequate staffing.

The overseas medical worker of the future will most likely be a nurse who has special skills, a technician who has experience with new equipment, a physician who is an academically trained specialist, or a very well-trained family practitioner. Our church's most exportable item is medical expertise.

4. Adventist institutions don't need Adventist personnel— "Never are we to lose sight of the great object for which our sanitariums are established—the advancement of God's closing work in the earth."8 Our medical institutions are necessary, and we need to open new ones in the centers of the world.

Personnel in these institutions must be dedicated to the cause of Christ. An institution is an extension of the church and has a corporate image or witness. It is not possible to have the proper witness if a significant number of the workers are not in sympathy with the goals of the institution.

The counsel of Ellen White concerning who should work in a sanitarium also applies to any health-care facility. "Our sanitariums are to be established for one object, the advancement of present truth. And they are to be so conducted that a decided impression in favor of the truth will be made on the minds of those who come to them for treatment. The conduct of the workers, from the head manager to the worker occupying the humblest position, is to tell on the side of truth. The institution is to be pervaded by a spiritual atmosphere. We have a warning message to bear to the world, and our earnestness, our devotion to God's service, is to impress those who come to our sanitariums."9

Unfortunately, some institutions have not always made it a high priority to hire Adventist nurses, physicians, technicians, and other staff. In some cases Adventist personnel have been let go and others without similar convictions have been secured to take their places. In speaking of the type of workers we should have, the Spirit of Prophecy declares: "These, in whatever line of work they are to labor, whether as physicians, nurses, or helpers, should be firm upon the principles of health reform and all the points of our faith." 10

Patients in an Adventist facility should find an atmosphere and a type of care found nowhere else, otherwise what is the witness of the institution for?

5. Medical work should be self-supporting —In affluent areas of the world our institutions are wise to try to be self-supporting. Yet many of our institutions overseas are in deep trouble financially. "Medical missions should be opened as pioneer agencies for the proclamation of the third angel's message. How great is the need of means to do this line of work! Gospel medical missions cannot be established without financial aid." 11 Ellen White writes: "Some, who do not see the advantage of educating the youth to be physicians both of the mind and of the body, say that the tithe should not be used to support medical missionaries, who devote their time to treating the sick. In response ... I am instructed to say that the mind must not become so narrowed down that it cannot take in the truth of the situation. A minister of the gospel who is also a medical missionary, who can cure physical ailments, is a much more efficient worker than one who cannot do this. His work as a minister of the gospel is much more complete." 12

If the medical work is indeed the right arm of the message, it must have, as Mrs. White says, proper support. We are at a crisis in recruiting physicians. Some of our best physicians in the mission field have become discouraged in the past few years. They point out that they are over worked, that there is insufficient planning, and that they do not have adequate support and facilities.

In addition, medical units are often "taxed." They are required to support chaplains, schoolteachers, and other aspects of the work. Health professionals who want to do outreach missionary work are prohibited from doing so because they are expected to stay full time grinding out income for the institution. Thus in some of the most needy and unreached areas of the world (areas where medical work is welcome) there is reluctance to even start medical work unless it can be self-supporting or be funded from other sources.

Our gospel commission is to go to all the world—in Harvest 90 terms, to "reach the unreached." At this moment we have closed or are faced with the imminent closure of medical institutions and work in essentially unreached areas of the world.

Many young health professionals have high ideals and would like a challenge, but little or no planning is being done for the survival or expansion of medical work in areas of the world where health and temperance are the major, if not the only, means for reaching the people. We know the medical work will be the last to be closed, but why close prematurely?

Many young people enter professional schools eager to dedicate their lives to service. "It should be made a part of gospel labor to help forward promising young men who give evidence that the love of truth and righteousness has a con straining influence upon them, leading them to dedicate themselves to the work of God, as medical missionaries.... Let a fund be established to carry this work forward." 13 The fund set up for deferred medical missionaries was stopped a few years ago because of financial difficulties. However, a large number of the medical missionaries in the past decade were a result of this fund.

This program has recently been started again but will need more funding to continue. Unfortunately, even assuming the new program can continue, we are facing several years now in which we shall have no young physicians in the pipeline who are scheduled to go abroad upon finishing their training.

We are told: "When those in charge of the medical missionary work realize that plants must be made in many places, God's work will be carried forward even in the hardest fields. When men see that it is necessary to establish the medical missionary work in America, can they not see that the same work is needed in new fields, where there is nothing to give character to the work?

"To send missionaries into a foreign field to do missionary work, unprovided with facilities and means, is like requiring bricks to be made without straw. Let God's servants act like wise men, remembering that the work in every part of the world is to assist the work in every other part." 14

We are presently unable to fill all the calls coming in for health and temperance workers. Future planning should help us meet these needs. We are in a crisis. The close of history is imminent. The great deceiver will attempt to throttle the health and temperance work, for he knows it is a vital force for Harvest 90.

These misconceptions of medical missionary work have wounded our mission, yet they need not be fatal. It will take courage to correct them. We must seek honest and open dialogue between health professionals, administrators, and clergy. If we can agree that we all have the same mission, preparing people for eternity, then the misconceptions will be dispelled, and the best days of medical missionary work are still ahead.

1 Ellen G. White, Medical Ministry (Mountain
View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1963), p.
237.

2 Ibid., p. 26.

3 ____Counsels on Health (Mountain View,
Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1951), p. 233.

____Medical Ministry, p. 262.

5 ____Temperance (Mountain View, Calif.:
Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1949), p. 15.

6 ____Medical Ministry, p. x.

7 Counsels on Health, p. 434.

8 Ibid., p. 233.

9 ____Testimonies for the Church (Mountain
View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1948), vol.
7, P. 97.

10 Medical Ministry, p. 199.

11 Counsels on Health, p. 500.

12 Medical Ministry, p. 245.

13 ____Selected Messages (Washington, D.C.:
Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1958), book 2, p.
208.

14 Medical Ministry, pp. 329, 330.


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G. Gordon Hadley, M. D. is the director of the Health and Temperance department of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

August 1987

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