The Story of our Health Message

The General Conference Medical Department

For several years this Medical Missionary Council functioned, but not with the highest degree of efficiency because the members were widely scattered and busy with other activities. In 1922, however, a full-time qualified physician was appointed as secretary of the General Conference Medical Department. He and his associates are assisted by local and union secretaries. Besides co-ordinating the various lines of institutional and professional endeavor, the department has been seeking earnestly to restore to its former emphasis the education of the laity in health principles. In reporting to the General Conference session of 1941, the secretary of the Medical Department set forth as one of its “major objectives and purposes” the promotion of “the teaching of simple, practical, balanced principles of physiology and hygiene in all our churches, schools, and wherever opportunity affords.” The Review and Herald, June 3, 1941. To this end the Medical Department has for some years fostered home nursing classes. For the conducting of these, instructors have been authorized, and certificates have been issued to those who have completed the course. SHM 428.4