This is part 6 of my Grandfather’s (A.W. Truman, M.D.)  letter to medical leaders and personnel to encourage a return to God’s design for sanitariums.

I wanted to include the rest of the letter here for you, but it may be too long. In today’s video, I finish reading the entire letter about how our sanitariums have strayed from God’s original design. If you missed parts 1-5, you can find them under the health category and subcategory Archibald William Truman M.D. Writings. Here is the link https://healthyhomesteadingadventures.com/category/health/archibald-william-truman-m-d-writings/

Sanitariums as Havens of Refuge

Considerable emphasis was placed upon another closely allied “reason why we should have a sanitarium.” These were to be havens of refuge for aging or other servants of God whose health has broken under the strain of burden bearing in service to this cause. Who could measure the blessing of God upon the St. Helena Sanitarium for its tender care for years of the aging veteran preacher, Elder J. N. Loughborough, and for our beloved veteran colporteur, Brother Walter Harper? But truly “times have sadly changed.” A new day has indeed dawned.

Recently with hot tears in my eyes, and with burning indignation in my heart (I trust it was the righteous type), I looked into the face of our dear, lovable veteran missionary, hero of many battles, who served this cause so long and so faithfully, Elder Doris Robinson. He was dying in a rest home and could not recognize me. He had been a patient in one of our Southern California sanitariums. For two weeks’ care, including special nursing, “He paid one thousand dollars.” This I learned from his nurse and verified by his son.

What retired missionary could long stand that racket? He was then taken to a hospital and placed in a four-bed ward. The three other men smoked like chimneys. He begged Sister Robinson to take him out. He was taken to a Mentone rest home operated by an Adventist nurse and was dying when I saw him.

This sad picture will remain a dark blot upon Seventh-day Adventist medical missionary (?) history (Elder Robinson wrote the story of our health message) and upon our miserly sanitarium “efficiency” with a vengeance. Just how far can the dollar sign drive us.?

Sanitariums Transformed Into Merciless Enterprise

For years I attended the “Eastern Efficiency” Commission Meetings, also the “Western Efficiency” Commission Meetings, and was present when the “Central Efficiency” Commission was organized in Boulder, Colorado.

The regular agenda for these meetings could be boiled down to one item– “How can we extract one dollar more from our sanitarium guests?” How many times I have heard our financial sanitarium men boast of having collected 103% or 105% of charges to patients, including old accounts?

While secretary of the Medical Department of the General Conference, in which post I served for twelve years, we arranged for a three-day Pre-conference Medical Council before our World Conference in San Francisco in 1930. At this Medical Council, I spoke each day about the subject, “How much can we give to our sanitarium guests at a minimum unit of cost to them?” Because of the interest created, we were requested to repeat the “talks” at the Glendale Sanitarium, which I did. To make it brief, the entire matter was laughed out of court. The final result–nothing.

A pertinent question might be, How did these ‘Gospel in Practice’ sanitariums come to be transformed from a merciful medical missionary ministry to a too often merciless medical mercenary commercial enterprise? There are exceptions.

Views of a Sanitarium Veteran

Speaking from the viewpoint of a sanitarium veteran who has lived through almost the entire period of our sanitarium history, and one who experienced the agonies of this unholy transformation, having spent the greater portion of my life in our larger medical institutions, most of the time as Medical Director, perhaps I could shed a ray of light upon the answer. Our physicians have a very considerable earning potential. This talent of earning power properly belongs to Christ and to His church which provided two-thirds of the actual cost of their medical education.

Not a few of these physicians are as sincerely dedicated to Christ and to His cause as is any preacher or any other worker. One of these physicians recently returned from long-term foreign mission service in order to educate his children. He offered his services to the church and was told “there is no place for you. Go into the private practice of medicine.” Amazing! He is now in the public health service of the U.S. Government

How to Secure and Hold S.D.A. Physicians

Is it wrong or wicked to assume that somewhere within the wider range of the framework of the Advent movement there might be a little niche in which some of the thousands of trained Seventh-day Adventist physicians might serve in putting something worthwhile on the map for this cause, have a real voice in directing the work for which they have been trained, and receive the satisfactions and the credit for their accomplishments?

Nonmedical Man to be Lord of Finance

At the big Medical Department-sponsored meeting held in Boulder, Colorado, nearly fifteen years ago, attended by our General Conference leaders, the editor of our church paper, and many of the leading medical and business personnel of the North American Division, I had been assigned to speak on the topic, “How to Secure and Retain Physicians for Our Sanitariums.” At that time most of our sanitariums still employed their own staff of physicians which was and is a part of “God’s design.” But the policy was then taking shape of placing a non-medical man as lord of finance over the institution with life and death powers over the institution.” (Why should not a medical man be the actual head instead of being but a figment or figurehead of a medical institution? Someone must head up the institution.)

We were told, “You are to have a leading voice in the medical affairs of the institution, the care of patients, etc., but you are to have nothing to do with the finances. I argued that “every move in a sanitarium involves finance, and that whoever controls finance controls the entire institution.”

Following this directive, the voice of the Medical Director and the medical staff were accorded about as much guiding authority in a sanitarium as the call boys or the maintenance men. The work of our full-time physicians became a “department” of a business organization, a commercial enterprise, alongside the “culinary department,” the “grounds department,” the “pharmacy,” the “housekeeping department,” the “laundry,” the “garage,” etc.

Medical Men Must Have a Guiding Voice

I said, “To secure and hold capable medical men you must either pay them in the gold coin of the realm or in that which they would prize more highly, those satisfactions which come from putting worthy medical missionary enterprises on the map for this cause, having a guiding voice in doing it, and receiving the credit merited.”

Said I, “We will lose our medical staff. Medical men will not submit to this unfair, unnatural, unreasonable, unjust imposition. Instead of operating S.D. A. sanitariums, we will soon be operating Adventist-Methodist hospitals — Adventist only in name.” Is that about what we have today?

Comparable Hybrid Administrative Inequalities

Let us postulate some comparable hybrid administrative inequalities. Suppose we say to the General Conference President, a Union Conference President, a local Conference President, or a pastor of a church, “Now you are to look after the quality and content of the preaching, also the spiritual interests of the Conference or the church, but you are to have no voice in financial matters. The Treasurers will have full charge of these.” How long would we have a president or a pastor?

Or we say to a college president, “You may choose the textbooks, arrange the curriculum, and standardize the teaching, but you have no responsibility or voice in the financial policies of the college. The business manager will have the controlling voice in all matters of finance.” Would we not soon be in search of another president? Please do not tell me I have shaded the picture. I lived with it and struggled under it for two decades.

Medical Men Want a Voice in Finances

Our medical men do not desire to operate the business department of a medical institution, but they are not willing to have this department operate independently of them. They want a voice in establishing the financial policies of medical institutions if they are to serve as full-time employees.

While serving as medical director and seeking competent medical men to join our staff, more than once have I been asked, “Who constitutes your Governing Board?” “Well, our Board comprises six ministers, two business managers, and the Medical Director.” “No, thanks. Why is your Board so priest-ridden?” I do not like that expression but at least it was colorful and factual. For a considerable period of time, the medical director of one of our major sanitariums was not a member of its Governing Board until I, as secretary of the Medical Department of the General Conference, intervened.

Physicians Have no Business Ability?

Men often declare, “Physicians have no business ability;” some business managers have exhibited little. Is it not strange how the taking of a scientific university training should deprive one of business sagacity and acumen? Our physicians, by and large, are doing very well by themselves and their families—palatial homes, fine office buildings, expensive equipment, two Cadillacs, a boat on the lake, a ranch in the mountains, etc. We have not a few physicians who save more money each year than any hospital we operate.

The Right Arm Message must be Restored

Why do I, an old sanitarium veteran, nearing the seventy-ninth milepost, write in this vein? There are reasons. I believe in the enormous potentialities of medical evangelism. ‘We are nearing Home.” There is still a vast work to be accomplished. These people and this movement will never be translated as armless cripples. The Right Arm Message must be restored. While swelling with questionable pride at our great Hybrid Hospital Monsters, I fear many S.D.A.s have scarcely developed a right arm bud. The right arm is primarily a message and not a building. It is made up of principles and not personnel. It is a way of life.

Solutions to Keep Physicians

For decades, between the medical men and the ministry of this denomination, there has been a Great Gulf Fixed.” Is it not time to bridge this Gulf and close its ranks? We desire to see the vast potential of our medical personnel utilized as part and parcel of the working forces of the Advent movement. Our physicians should be yoked up with the ministry, with our church work, and with this evangelical movement for the entire world, in indissoluble union.

Do we want them? If we do, we must woo them. We must prove that we have something worthwhile to offer them. Let us implement the paper policy of the General Conference and appoint Medical Directors as Actual Heads of Any New Medical institutions. Let the Medical Directors be the Vice Chairman of the Board. In a Board of nine members, let there be four physicians and the Director of Nurses.

Super-Teamwork Needed in Sanitariums

We desire no lords nor rulers; we want no supermen in either the medical or business department. We want super-teamwork, and super cooperation, but every conference, every college, and every medical institution must have a head. An animal born with two heads always dies and ought to. Who is better qualified to understand the problems of patients, physicians, nurses, workers, and the objectives of an Adventist medical institution than is its staff of trained medical personnel?

Dr. Truman Resigns from Glendale Sanitarium

After serving the Glendale Sanitarium as Medical Director for nine and a half years (and I would not take back a day of it) under the pressure of a situation related closely to the above, I addressed the Board for the last time, “Brethren, this Board is responsible for this institution. You have a right to establish the operating policies of the sanitarium. I cannot go along with you and sell down the river, to selfish, private interests, our laboratory, and x-ray, two of the best-earning departments of the sanitarium. I here and now submit my resignation.”

Mercenaries and Gold-diggers Moved In

Yes, the medical staff were crowded out of our sanitariums, they left, and mercenary-minded men and professional gold-diggers moved in. Our sanitariums having thus been deprived of the earnings of their physician employees, surgical, x-ray, and laboratory fees, their sources of revenue were greatly reduced. Prices soared until sick S.D.A.s, the aged, retired, or broken workers and the worthy poor have been priced clear out of these institutions which were brought into existence primarily to serve them. Who of our people or the poor can stand $30.00 a day for a ward bed and pay doctor fees, surgical fees, x-ray, laboratory fees, and hydro treatments besides?

Do you not think, Brethren, we should spend a little time reconsidering the pattern and see what we might still do to recover lost ground, at least to hold the line and in any new sanitariums to be established, return to the missionary ideals, designs, and methods of the pioneer builder? I am neither so inexperienced, so credulous, so stupid, nor so ignorant of human nature as to believe that the men who are responsible for the planning, which created these white elephants as workshops for worldly physicians, these mammoth, community hospitals which we should never have had, will admit the blunders or change the operating policies of these institutions and perhaps it could not now be done.

Future Sanitariums not to be “Glendalized”

But what of the sanitariums now being or yet to be established? Shall these be “Glendalized,” and started on a false course and ruined in the “borning” process? May God give us counselors, men of true vision, men of sufficient courage to break with old manmade sanitarium “traditions” and the policies which have led to failure and guide us again to put sanitariums on the map which the pioneer founding fathers could recognize.

Referring to the sanitarium picture in Southern California, “One of dignity and authority arose and said, I have some words of counsel for you. Never, never repeat a mistake of the past. Men have placed too much confidence in themselves. You have, said our instructor, come to an important place in the history of your work.” LLM 45.

Beware of Men

“As a people, we have been greatly humiliated by the course that some of our brethren in responsible positions have taken in departing from the old landmarks. There are those who, in order to carry out their plans, have by their words denied their faith. This shows how little dependence can be placed on human wisdom and human judgment. Now, as never before, we need to see the danger of being led unguardedly away from loyalty to God’s commands. Let them beware of departing from the principles of our faith, making it appear that it is not wrong to conform to the world.” 7T 107.

Where did men get the present pattern for operating our hospitals? Straight from the world.

General Conference Men not the Voice of God.

“Let them be afraid of heeding the counsel of any man, whatever his position may be, who works counter to that which God has wrought in order to keep His people separate from the world. The Lord is testing His people, to see who will be loyal to the principles of His truth.” 7T  107

“Many of you have been educating yourselves to talk with human beings instead of talking with God. —  There are those here that have traditions, and they stand just as the Pharisees stood. — ‘You are to stand by the old traditions,’ they say. But what we want is God’s traditions. We want to have the living principles of heaven brought into our lives. — That these men should stand as the Voice of God to the people, as we once believed the General Conference to be, that is past.” General Conference Bulletin 1901, Vol. 4, p. 25.

Man’s Inventions and Human Wisdom

“Man’s inventions often counterwork God’s plans. Those who build the Temple of the Lord, are to build according to the pattern shown in the Mount — the divine similitude. God is dishonored and the gospel is betrayed when his servants depend on the counsel of men who are not under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Worldly wisdom is foolishness with God. Those who rely upon it will surely err.” DA 354.

“Dependence has been placed upon human wisdom and failure has been the result.” LM 45. This was “written” regarding the sanitarium work in Southern California. That sanitarium (hospital) work has become the model, and like a virile contagion has been spreading to our other medical institutions.

Brethren our sanitarium course has by men been guided wrong. Are we not sadly off the beam? Shall we not try to get back? Are our sanitariums converting the world to truth, to diet, to rational therapy, to Christian ideals, or has the world been slowly, stealthily, converting us to conform more and more to its ideals and methods? “Lord, open our eyes.”

Changes in Men or Changes of Men

“A new element needs to be brought into the work” Study this “new element” pattern and learn what this missing “breath of life” is. 6T 267.

But can we trust this “new wine” in “old bottles?”

“A strange thing has come into our churches. Men who are placed in positions of responsibility that they may be wise helpers to their fellow workers have come to suppose that they were set as kings and rulers in the churches, to say to one brother, ‘do this;’ to another, ‘do that;’ and to another, ‘be sure to labor in such and such a way.’ There have been places where workers have been told that if they did not follow this instruction of these men of responsibility, their pay from the conference would be withheld.’ TM 477.

Or, “there will be no financial aid to your institution unless you operate it according to our traditional policies.”

No counsel is clearer than that “one man’s mold shall not too long be placed over any branch of the Lord’s work.” Is it not high time, Brethren, for important changes to be made?”

“The men that have long stood in positions of trust while disregarding the light that God has given, are not to be depended upon. God wants them to be removed.” General Conference Bulletin 1901, Vol 4, pp. 25,26

Transfusion of New Blood Needed

While appreciating the contributions servicemen have made in the past, Brethren, please let us have a transfusion of new blood in our medical department, men who are not bound by old, unsound traditions or former blunders; men who will be guided by “God’s traditions” and will bring a “new element” into the work; such men as Dr. Wayne McFarland, Dr. Ralph Waddell, Dr. Sigfried Kotz, Dr. Dunbar Smith, Dr. J.A. Scharffenberg, Dr. R.S. Newbold, Dr. Carrol Small, or anyone who has demonstrated that he can stand boldly for God’s principles, God’s designs and traditions for our medical work.

Our Lord does not discount brains, but He places a much higher premium upon hearts, upon loyalty to the principles of His Truth.

Brethren have not the science worshippers, the lovers of the world’s plans and opinions, the meat grinders, bone pickers, the coffee bibbers, the tea toppers, and the frozen dainty gourmands had their long day?

Who Said It?

As the church faces its final, mighty charge against the formidable, strongly entrenched forces of evil, is it not high time for significant changes in our leadership” Is not God’s church now particularly confronted with the age-old but very present issue, “Yea hath God said” or did a woman say it?

Conclusion

My Brethren, does the church have time to drag its heels and its wheels through another quadrennium on these vital, testing, Spirit of Prophecy issues? — The locating of our medical college, the Adventist Sanitarium vs. the Community Hospital, the beef steak and a coffee pot, or the Health Reform Diet issue? All of these issues are bound up and knit closely together in a single vital bundle. –“Yea hath God said” or did a woman say it? “How readest thou? What hath the Lord spoken?”

Is it not high time for the church to choose leaders, all of whom in their example, their practices, and their preachments, would lead us “North” and not toward the Desert Sands?

Shall we not all scrutinize and carefully measure the Pattern and build our lives and each branch of the Lord’s work “according to the (Divine) Pattern shown in the Mount” regardless?”

Respectfully submitted,

A. W. Truman, M.D.

P.S. Since the lowly and sometimes discredited, but expensive mimeograph is at present the only open forum available for the discussion of problems vitally related to the promulgation of the Health Reform message, should you desire, you may assist in making the above Spirit of Prophecy counsel available to others.

A.W.T.

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Tamara