It is an honor and a pleasure to introduce my lifelong friend and Loma Linda School of Medicine, Med ’86, classmate, Glen Van Arsdell ’86, as the 2026 Alumni Association Alumnus of the Year. I feel well qualified to write this vignette about Van Arsdell, since he was my medical school classmate, my college classmate, and my childhood friend as missionary kids in Thailand. Both of our fathers, Roger C. Van Arsdell ’60 and Paul Watson ’59, were LLUSM graduates, and both served as missionary physicians in Thailand during the same era (1960s). It was here that he was first inspired to devote his life to serving others as a surgeon, growing up in the home of medical missionary parents, where his father served as a missionary surgeon for nine years in Thailand.

At a very early age, Van Arsdell exhibited leadership skills and superior ambitions that far exceeded the rest of us. For instance, most of us learned how to play one instrument. Van Arsdell learned to play three instruments and mastered them all (trumpet, piano, and organ). He credits this involvement in music with teaching him how to learn with patience and dedication.

Instead of getting just his private license to fly an airplane, Van Arsdell completed enough additional training to become a certified flight instructor as well. Then he flew a single-engine “tail dragger” plane, solo, from Tennessee to Alaska, where he taught flying for the summer after high school graduation. This was how Van Arsdell always did things. Instead of attending college (Southern Missionary College) for four years like most of us, he finished college in two years (graduating Magna Cum Laude), and as a result, he was one of the youngest to graduate from the School of Medicine in our class. So it is no surprise to all of us who know Van Arsdell personally that he has become a giant in his surgical specialty.

After graduating from medical school, Van Arsdell completed both general surgery and thoracic surgery training at Loma Linda under the mentorship of LEONARD L. BAILEY ’69, the congenital heart surgery pioneer. It was during our third year of med school that Dr. Bailey did the first xenograft heart transplant in the world (Baby Fae, October 26, 1984).

After LLU Van Arsdell then went to Toronto, Canada, where he completed fellowships in cardiac surgery and congenital heart surgery at the Hospital for Sick Children. Here, as faculty and chief of cardiothoracic surgery, he transformed Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children into the number one center for pediatric congenital heart defects in Canada, combining pediatrics, pediatric cardiology, transplant surgery, and cardiothoracic surgery into one integrated heart center team.

Following in the footsteps of his mentor, the late Dr. Bailey, Van Arsdell has gone on to train hundreds of pediatric surgeons worldwide and has impacted the care of thousands of children with heart defects, changing the paradigm of how to produce consistent, high-quality care with an integrated, systems-based analysis of each component of multidisciplinary pediatric congenital cardiac care.

In this integrated heart center, Van Arsdell created a computer database that would track team performance across specialties, which included pediatrics, cardiology, and surgery. This database is used to identify deficiencies, solve problems, and improve patient care. In Toronto, he also developed an innovative cardiac surgery skills simulation laboratory, developing 3D-printed hearts for surgical training. To this day, he continues to teach internationally, using these 3D-printed hearts to train surgeons worldwide.

After a 20-year career in Toronto, leading the largest congenital heart surgery program in all of Canada, Van Arsdell returned to the United States to become a professor and chief of congenital heart surgery at UCLA, becoming the chief surgeon at both UCLA Children’s Hospital and at the Children’s Hospital of Orange County. During Van Arsdell’s academic career in both Canada and the U.S., he has been a productive researcher, teacher, and scholar, publishing over 200 articles in peer-reviewed journals and receiving 15 major research grants. Van Arsdell’s research has focused on the application of precision surgery for Tetralogy of Fallot defects. He is a sought-after international guest surgeon and lecturer worldwide.

Van Arsdell heart for service is profoundly impacting tiny hearts globally. In his volunteer work abroad through Heartlink, an independent NGO, he trains specialists, thus bolstering the cardiology programs in China and Brazil. His outstanding work has been recognized with numerous awards, including receiving an Alumni Association Honored Alumni Award in 2016.

His family includes his father, Roger Van Arsdell ’60; his mother, Marcia; his sister, Linda; and his brother-in-law, Sidney Whiting ’87.

I cannot think of a more deserving physician than my friend, classmate, and roommate, Dr. Glen Van Arsdell, to receive the honor of 2026 Alumnus of the Year.