What makes a hospital successful? In an article written for the website Nursezone.com, it states, “Top hospitals have developed and implemented a successful business and clinical strategies that allow them to balance their finances and patient care” (Larson, 2002). Pastor John A. Burden, a Seventh-day Adventist, founded Loma Linda University Medical Center on May 29, 1905 (“A Brief History Loma Linda University Health,” 2014). For more than one hundred years, Loma Linda University has dedicated itself to the teaching and ministry of Jesus Christ through service, research, healthcare, learning, and spiritual life.
It was Pastor Burden’s wish to not only start a medical center, but train young Seventh-day Adventists to eventually become missionaries (“A Brief History Loma Linda University Health,” 2014). Today Loma Linda University School of Medicine is dedicated to training students by emphasizing the patient’s needs, and capitalizing on preventative care in efforts to slow down future disease. Their philosophy is to provide a Christian-like atmosphere, while providing students with a learning environment that offers excellent teachers and training facilities. Loma Linda University has chosen as its motto, “To Make Man Whole.” It seeks to restore man to wholeness, that he may more fully enjoy relationships with his fellowman and communion with God.
Aside from becoming a teaching facility, Loma Linda University has a variety of outreach programs designed to give back to the community locally and globally. PossAbilities is an example of one of their local outreach programs, that offers people born with disabilities or suffered physical injury a place to feel safe and welcomed. One of their goals is to offer a sense of community through social collaboration with their peers. They offer membership for people with physical disabilities such as stroke, spinal cord injury, limb amputation, muscular dystrophy, spina bifida and many others (PossAbilities, 2015). The benefits of membership include, social and recreational activities, peer mentoring, support groups, and grant/scholarship opportunities, just to name a few (PossAbilities, 2015).
I believe this hospital should be recognized for their amount of research they do in order to find better ways to help and treat people. The third baby in the world to receive a heart transplant was done at Loma Linda University Medical Center, and was finally recognized internationally. At the time, more that 10,000 babies were born in the United States with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, however no one was willing to perform the complicated surgery. The baby only lived 20 and a half days, and a year after her death, baby Moses was referred to the hospital for a heart transplant. On November 19, 1985 baby Moses, at only four days old, was the youngest in the world to receive a heart transplant successfully (“Loma Linda University Medical Center Legacy: Daring to Care,” 2015).
Growing up I was raised Seventh-day Adventist and one of the beliefs/values we were taught was to treat your body like a temple. I was taught to avoid meat and focus on a more plant-based diet. On November 2005, National Geographic named Loma Linda one of the places where people live significantly longer aside from Okinawa and Sardinia (Buettner, 2005). “Residents of these three places produce a high rate of centenarians, suffer a fraction of the diseases that commonly kill people in other parts of the developed world, and enjoy more healthy years of life” (Buettner, 2005). In saying that, this hospital is more about providing care to their patients. They are about teaching prevention through lifestyle as well as showing others that giving back to the community locally and globally in efforts to live in a better world is the way to our future. Maybe I’m bias because I’ve lived in Loma Linda, or maybe because I am Seventh-day Adventist, but I truly believe that Loma Linda University Medical Center deserves to be in the top 100 hospitals.

References
A Brief History Loma Linda University Health (2014). Loma Linda University Health
Advancement. Retrieved November 20, 2015, from http://advancement.lluhealth.org/who-we-are/our-history
Buettner, D. (November 2005). Residents of Okinawa, Sardinia, and Loma Linda, California, live longer, healthier lives than just about anyone else on Earth. What do they know the rest of us don’t? National Geographic. Retrieved November 20, 2015 from http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0511/feature1/
Larson, J. (2002). What Makes Them Successful? 100 Top Hospitals Report Traces Hospital
Successes. NurseZone. Retrieved November 20, 2015, from http://www.nursezone.com/nursing-news-events/more-news/What-Makes-Them-Successful-100-Top-Hospitals-Report-Traces-Hospital-Successes_29096.aspx
Loma Linda University Medical Center Legacy: Daring To Care (2015). Loma Linda University
A Seventh-day Adventist Organization. Retrieved November 20, 2015, from http://www.llu.edu/central/info/legacy/chapter3.page
PossAbilities (2015). PossAbilities Loma Linda University Health. Retrieved November 20, 2015, from http://www.teampossabilities.org/about-us/