# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1950_S469
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

MISSIONS 477

ts on completion of their medical training are loath to make
additional sacrifices, particularly in view of the strenuous and
lengthy course of studies, the high cost of education, the possibility
of a lucrative practice, and to some degree a stigma attached by
their associates to any one who accepts a missionary status.

In order to supply the medical mission program with competent

nnel, we plead with Synod that the following proposals be
seriously considered.

1. An organization composed of consecrated medical men and
members of the clergy, which would include medical missionaries
and missionaries on furlough or retired, should be provided for.
Their duties would consist of contacting likely pre-medical and
pre-dental students, inspiring them with a zeal for the Lord’s
work and the following up of these contacts.

2. A fund is to be set aside to give financial aid to worthy
students who desire to enter the field of medical missions. The
motivating cause for acceptance of the scholarship should be pri-
marily the furthering of the Lord’s work and not a source of aid
to medical students who have inadequate private financial re-
sources: These funds need not be repaid if the recipient remains
in a foreign field for a reasonable period of time. Repayment at
current rates of interest are to be made by those who fail to com-
plete the course or fail to accept a position.

3. A missionary center in our home country is to be organized
and necessary buildings erected. In these buildings will be housed
missionaries and medical missionaries on furlough, students, and
their families. Housing will be without charge. A likely place
for such an arrangement would be the campus of our Seminary
in St. Louis. This location would give the missionaries and students
access to two large universities and medical schools. Postgraduate
work would thereby be easily available.

The purpose of such housing will be to promote fellowship,
nurture interest, and heighten the zeal of those who have conse-
crated themselves to this work.

4. Furthermore, an association with a Lutheran hospital should
be encouraged so that it may become-a medical center for our
medical missionaries. The hospital is to act as a central agency
for the collection of medical material for our foreign missions and
for the dissemination of pertinent medical information, and possibly
supplies, to our medical missions. The hospital should act as
a home base so that prospective graduates may follow an accept~
able internship and even obtain accredited residencies.