A commitment to caring
The role of nursing in Adventist health care By Patricia S. Jones and Helen Emori King
From the beginning of Adventist health care, nursing has played an essential role in achieving the mission of whole-person care. In the late nineteenth century nurses were not only a regular part of the medical missionary teams but sometimes the only member. In 1895, for example, a 29-year-old nurse named Georgia Burrus left her home in London and arrive in Calcutta alone to begin the missionary health work in India.* A year later other nurses from Battle Creek arrived to complete the team. Burrus continued her work in India for nearly 40 years. Stories of nurses pioneering in the medical missionary work can be told about areas all over the world as well - from South America to the South Pacific, and from Europe to South Africa. An interesting feature of the early health work is that once a health facility was established, it was immediately followed by the development of a training school of nurses.
Early beginnings
In keeping with the pattern described above, Loma Linda Sanitarium and Hospital opened in 1905, and started a training school for nurses the same year. When the School of Medical Evangelists (CME) School of Nursing.2 At that time it was one of 14 nurse training schools operated by Seventh-day Adventist hospitals in North America. Today it is one of 12 nursing programs in Adventist colleges/universities in North America, and one of approximately 60 nursing program operated by Adventist institutions around the world.
At CME School of Nursing, as in other early Adventist health centers, hydrotherapy treatments were an important part of nursing care, especially in the care of patients with severe respiratory infections before antibiotics were available. One student from that period recalls caring for a young man who was very ill with pneumonia. Struggling to fight the infection in his chest, she gave him not fomentations with intermittent cold friction rubs to the chest every three hours daily for more than a week. More than 50 years later when the same nurse was making a purchase from a Redlands nursery, the owner of the nursery noticed that she signed her name as Clarice Woodward. The elderly man looked surprised and commented, "I have met only one other person named Clarice before. She was a student nurse at Loma Linda Sanitarium." He described the hot moist treatments to his chest, and how they promoted his recovery from pneumonia. As their eyes met, they knew that she was the student nurse and he was the patient. Fifty years later he had a chance to say "Thank you for saving my life."
Later developments
With the move of nursing education into colleges and universities, the need for faculty with higher degrees became urgent. The beginning of a graduate program in nursing at CME in 1956, offering an MS degree, provided Adventist nurse educators with timely access to graduate study. Today, in 2005, every Adventist nursing program in North America has at least one Loma Linda graduate on its faculty.
Offering a graduate program meant that Adventist nurse educators from other countries could safely enroll for graduate study in an institution that didn't require classes or exams on Sabbath, and where the philosophy of whole-person care was integrated into the curriculum. Soon after the program was established in 1956, national nurse educators from Adventist institutions in Indonesia, Thailand, and Japan, for example, traveled to Loma Linda. They completed their graduate study and returned to their home countries to serve as nursing leaders in Adventist institutions.
Alumni contributions to the World field
Kathryn Jensen, a graduate of the CME School of Nursing in 1971, had a major and lasting impact on Adventist nursing education in the United States and internationally. Just four years after Jensen completed the three-year program at Loma Linda, the Medical Department (now called Health Ministries Department) of the General Conference invited her to join the department full-time to oversee the training schools, coordinate relationships between the schools and hospitals, and recruit nurses for the many positions needing competent nurse leaders. Adventist hospitals and schools of nursing had multiplied rapidly in the previous three decades, and the need for someone to address issues related to the preparation of nurses was great. Jensen's keen insight and able leadership in the General Conference Medical Department had direct impact on the development of collegiate nursing education in the Adventist educational system. Some years after leaving that role, she had the opportunity to return to Loma Linda to be the first dean of the baccalaureate program in nursing, and also to develop the graduate program leading to a master of science (MS) degree.
International Outreach
In response to the growing international need for nurse educators prepared at the graduate level, Loma Linda University School of Nursing (LLUSN) has been providing one scholarship at a time to a nurse educator from a sister institution in a developing country where graduate education in nursing is either not available or involves Sabbath classes. If the institution agrees to provide travel and living expenses, LLUSN provides a scholarship to cover the tuition of the MS in Nursing degree. The first student to enter this program was Vertibelle Awoniyi, who studied at Loma Linda University (LLU) and La Sierra University to complete requirements for the Nigerian Nursing Council, to become principal of the Ile-Ife Hospital nursing program. As a result of her work, the nursing program was restarted, and several classes of nursing graduates have passed the examination for Nigerian licensure at the highest level.
Off-campus master's degree program.
To respond more immediately to the acute need for qualified nursing faculty, plans for an LLU off-campus international master's program were developed in 2002 when we received an indication of support from the Chan Shun Foundation. The program is being offered in a concentrated format on two international campuses: in English in Thailand, and in Spanish in Argentina. It is hoped that the concentrated format and financial support for travel, lodging, and other costs will make the master's program feasible to nurse educators with family responsibilities and limited resources.
Beginning in April 2005 and continuing for the next five years, an AS to BS program will be offered at Saniku Gakuin College (SGC) in Japan, in the Japanese language. Nursing education is Japan is moving toward baccalaureate nursing education. LLUSN is giving Saniku Gakuin College time to upgrade faculty academic qualifications and the physical facilities to meet the requirements of the Japanese government in order to offer a BS degree of their own. Because the nursing program is the largest program offered at the college, the success of this program is crucial to the well-being of the entire institution, and potentially to Adventist higher education in Japan.
PhD in Nursing
In contrast with the early beginning of nursing education, nursing faculty today are educated at the doctoral level, with a responsibility to develop the science base of the discipline. As with the master's degree program 50 years earlier, this level of education is not always available to Adventist nurse educators in some countries. One of the first doctoral students is Iris Mamier, director of the Waldfriede Hospital School of Nursing in Berlin. She will be returning to Germany to develop an academic Adventist nursing program in Europe.
Global partnerships project
In 1997 the General Conference approached LLU requesting nursing consultation for the world field of Adventist nursing. Patricia Jones, director of the Office of International Nursing, was invited to join the Department of Health Ministries while continuing her teaching and research responsibilities. Building on the common commitment of Adventist nurses, the Global Partnerships in Nursing for Wholistic Nursing Care project brings together nurse educators and clinical leaders to explore the implementation of wholistic care in different cultural settings. Workshops and conference in five different countries - Thailand, Brazil, South Africa, Romania, and England - have provided rich insights to the meaning and practice of whole-person care in diverse cultural groups, and at the same time have created a global network of connectedness for Adventist nurses.
Circle of Caring
One morning during fall quarter of 1989 an administrator in the School of Nursing found Mary sitting in the hall crying. She invited Mary into her office to talk. Mary began: "I came to Loma Linda because one of your graduates took care of my father while he was dying. When I told her that I thought nursing would be a better career for me than what I was currently doing, she suggested I attend Loma Linda University School of Nursing." Mary had sold everything, and now she and her young son were living in a trailer at a friend's house. The friend was not charging her any rent, and that was how she was able to attend school here. However, that very morning her car had broken down. Now she would have to drop out of school to work so that she could have it fixed. Out of generous alumni gifts, the school was able to help her fix her car and thus remain in school.
A few weeks later another student came to the administrator's office requesting information about who could benefit from a Christmas basket. It was her family's custom to give a give basket to someone at Christmastime, and even though she was far away from her family, she wanted to do that here. The administrator told her about Mary. Just before Christmas she brought a big box of good and gifts for Mary, with the understanding that Mary not know who had given the box.
A couple of years went by Mary met and married a young minister in San Bernardino. After graduation Mary did not forget the gifts her classmate had given her. For many years she sent a check for $100 just before Christmas. The note always said, "Please give this to a single mother to make Christmas brighter for her and her family." The money was given to Susan, a single mother who, after becoming an Adventist in the Midwest, decided to go to LLU to study nursing. She was very surprised but delighted to receive the gift. Years passed. One day Susan called to say that she hadn't forgotten the gift and wanted to pass on help to others in need. Two weeks later she came to the school with 12 gift envelopes and a request that they be given to single mothers. One of those who received the gift wrote this not of thanks: "I feel so lucky to be attending Loma Linda University. It seems like every time I feel depressed or overwhelmed, or when I think things are going bad for me, something like this happens. I am proud to tell you that I am almost finished with the program, and I will not forget those who helped me."
The commitment to caring did not end with the early days of sanitarium care, or the transition from College of Medical Evangelists to Loma Linda University. The circle remains unbroken.
* Muriel Chapman, Mission of Love: A Century of Seventh-day Adventist Nursing (Association of Seventh-day Adventist Nursing - NAD, 2000). 2Maxine Atteberry, From Pinafores to Pantsuits: The Story of the Loma Linda University School of Nursing (Loma Linda University, 1975).