The Story of our Health Message

Essential Qualifications

Essential qualifications of Christian physicians are listed in this important article. They are to be “firm as a rock to principle”; “kind and courteous to all”; “strictly temperate”; “free from the use of tobacco”; possessed with “a natural energy, force, and perseverance that will enable them to reach a high standard of excellence”; men of prayer, “closely connected with the great Physician of soul and body.” SHM 252.1

Mrs. White deplored the fact that some who had entered upon the duties of the profession were altogether unprepared, having neither the “requisite knowledge” nor the “skill and tact, the carefulness and intelligence, necessary to insure success.” She wrote: SHM 252.2

“Some have been singled out as men who might be useful as physicians, and they have been encouraged to take a medical course. But some who commenced their studies in the medical colleges as Christians did not keep the divine law prominent; they sacrificed principle and lost their hold on God. They felt that single-handed they could not keep the Fourth Commandment and meet the jeers and ridicule of the ambitious, the world-loving, the superficial, the skeptic, and the infidel. ... Temptations of every kind opened before them, and they had no strength to resist.”—Ibid., 447. SHM 252.3

In contrast to the student who had thus lost his way while pursuing his medical studies in a college where often his instructors were “worldly wise men and his fellow students infidels,” some had gone through the course and had remained true to principle. Of these Mrs. White said: SHM 252.4

“They would not continue their studies on the Sabbath; and they have proved that men may become qualified for the duties of a physician and not disappoint the expectations of those who furnish them means to obtain an education. Like Daniel, they have honored God, and He has kept them.”—Ibid., 447, 448. SHM 252.5