Spiritual Descendants of American Medical Missionary College
The Alumni Association’s earliest alumni are not actually graduates from Loma Linda University School of Medicine or its predecessor College of Medical Evangelists. Our earliest alumni from the classes of 1899–1910, who hold the initials of AMMC after their name, are graduates of American Medical Missionary College in Battle Creek, Michigan. When AMMC closed in 1909–1910 and the College of Medical Evangelists began, AMMC graduates became absorbed as part of our Association.
The following reprinted article, originally published in January 1949 in the ALUMNI JOURNAL, explains the history and why AMMC alumni are fellow alumni.
An Opportunity for AMMC Alumni
By Benton N. Colver AMMC 1904, chair, AMMC committee
Reprinted from the January 1949 issue of the ALUMNI JOURNAL.
A wonderful and inspirational leader, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, together with a little group of real pioneers in our medical work (among them Daniel Kress, Abbie Winegar, David Paulson, Howard Rand, Charles E. Stewart, A. B. Olson, and William A. George) determined in the early 1890s to enter upon a most difficult task. The task was the launching of a new medical school, the program of which would be adapted to training doctors to help in the world-wide work of the Adventist Church. This school, the American Medical Missionary College, established in 1895, graduated 194 students in its twelve classes before it merged with the College of Physicians and Surgeons, University of Illinois, in the fall of 1911.
The College of Medical Evangelists, which was chartered in 1909 at Loma Linda, California, has sometimes been called the “spiritual descendant” of AMMC, and for many years AMMC graduates have been associate members of the CME Alumni Association. The graduates of AMMC, and others who attended AMMC three years but were graduated elsewhere, have watched with keen interest the growth of the College of Medical Evangelists. Newton Evans, Martin Keller, and George Thomason—three members of the first AMMC class who were sent to Eastern colleges to complete their course and who returned to help establish AMMC on a solid educational foundation—were later strong members on the CME faculty. At least one member of nine of the twelve AMMC classes has been active in helping on the CME faculty. During nearly forty years of activity, CME has been not only served, but saved, by some of the men from AMMC.
We of AMMC who have watched the development of the younger college have been proud of the standing reached by CME. A few years ago when I invited a prominent ear, nose, and throat man of Beverly Hills to join the department of which I have charge, he said that he would be pleased to do so. He stated that he had become acquainted with the name of CME while he was still a student at Harvard. At that time both Harvard and CME required that every student pass the examination of the National Board of Medical Examiners before he was handed his diploma. This physician explained, “At Harvard we were always awaiting the publication of the results of each examination of the National Board to see whether a Harvard man or a CME man took first place.”
The article goes on as a fundraising campaign of the existing CME alumni to support the growth of and improvement of the facilities on the Los Angeles campus to meet the needs of the CME. But the history is clear; we are the “spiritual descendants of the AMMC!”
Note: Karen Olsen Shea ’59, alerted us that her grandfather’s name was misspelled in the original 1949 article above. The correct spelling is A. B. Olsen.
Published in the Spring 2026 ALUMNI JOURNAL.
