Booklet Commemorating 130 Years at Sinai Samaritan Medical Center
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Advocate Aurora Health Advocate Aurora Health Institutional Repository Aurora Sinai Medical Center Books, Documents, and Pamphlets Aurora Sinai Medical Center April 2015 Booklet commemorating 130 years at Sinai Samaritan Medical Center Aurora Health Care Follow this and additional works at: https://institutionalrepository.aah.org/asmc_books This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Aurora Sinai Medical Center at Advocate Aurora Health Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Aurora Sinai Medical Center Books, Documents, and Pamphlets by an authorized administrator of Advocate Aurora Health Institutional Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 180etuwi______ I t_’ — - w__j_ l H I S 0T R Y 0 F4 •• : . •. • . :•• . Vrrr . Sinai Samaritan Celebrates a Tradition of ThvLsi#y and Excellence 1863-1993 , S - S 180 ecu Sinai Samaritan Celebrates a Tradition of Diversity and Excellence 1863 - 1993 Table of Contents A Tradition of Diversity and Excellence 1 Milwaukee Hospital (Lutheran Hospital) 2 Mount Sinai Hospital 8 Evangelical Deaconess Hospital 12 Good Samaritan Medical Center 15 Sinai Samaritan Medical Center 17 Moving Ahead 19 Welcoming the Future 22 Cover Art by: Jean Moberg and Sr. Rose Kroeger — —— - ‘Jo - EZZ A Tradition ofDiversity and Excellence inai Samaritan Medical Center cele Despite these changes, our commitment to brates a 130-year tradition of diversity caring and service hasn’t wavered in 130 S and excellence in health care in the years. The Lutheran Deaconess tradition, Milwaukee community in 1993. Sinai the Jewish heritage, and the legacy of the Samaritan’s origins can be traced back to United Church of Christ have melded to humble beginnings in 1863 when form the diversity and excellence the Milwaukee Hospital was founded, to 1903 medical center is known for today. These when Mount Sinai Hospital was organized, rich and varied traditions are the solid foun and to 1910 when Deaconess Hospital was dation upon which the medical center con- established. tinues to grow, change and build for the future. In 1863 the population of Milwaukee was about 28,000. Today more than one million people call the Milwaukee area home. Rapid advances in medical science and technology, spiraling costs, the advent of managed care and other changes in reimbursement have profoundly reshaped the delivery of health care. 1 - 180 %ai’w’ - Milwaukee Hospital (Lutheran Hospital) C’. • • without money, but rich in faith.” 1863-1980 in 1 863 was a far differ- “The Passavant” ) opened in 1 863 as a 20- ent place from Milwaukee today. bed facility — the first Protestant hospital 4i1waukeeThe Civil War was being waged. west of Pittsburgh. The converted brick The present-day site of the West campus was farmhouse, purchased for $12,000, was farmland, within the city limits but definite- located on 1 0 acres of land near the western ly rural. Financially secure Milwaukee resi limits of the city “on an eminence which dents who needed medical care — even commanded a charming view of the whole surgery — were treated at home by general city and the blue sky and lake beyond.” practitioners. The poor were consigned to Passavant administered the hospital from poorhouses or pesthouses. Pittsburgh through the Board of Managers of the Institution of Protestant Deaconesses. Early hospitals throughout the nation were founded by church-affiliated groups putting The first patient admitted to The Passavant into practice their basic religious tenets to on August 3, 1863, is thought to have been care for the poor, the sick, and the disadvan a Norwegian sailor suffering from tubercu taged. The situation in Milwaukee was no losis. Many early patients were sick or different. The Rev. J. Muehlhaeuser of disabled veterans of the Civil War, and an Grace German Lutheran Church, prompted by the horrors of the cholera epidemic of the 1850s, pleaded with the Rev. William A. Passavant, Director of the Institution of Protestant Deaconesses in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to come to Milwaukee to establish a hospi tal. After more than a decade of negotia tions, Milwaukee The original Milwaukee Hospital Hospital (informal was a remodeled farmhouse on the outskirts of town. ly called 2 - 180 ecu - isolation cottage for the treatment of victims The medical needs of the community were of smallpox was maintained from 1266- growing, and in 1883 the foundation was 1 277. Four well-known Milwaukee laid on the farmhouse hill for a new hospital physicians donated their services to the building. At that time, hospitals were con- fledgling hospital. sidered to be sources of contagious diseases, and a resolution was introduced before the Until 1903, all nursing care at The Milwaukee Common Council to prohibit Passavant was provided by Deaconess the hospital from expanding within the city sisters. For its first 20 years the hospital was limits. under the direction of Sister Barbara Kaag who had trained in Pittsburgh and served The resolution failed, but the new 70-bed under Dorothea Dix at a military hospital hospital was seriously damaged by fire near Washington, DC. Deaconesses were before it could be occupied. Arson was sus highly religious, consecrated women who pected. According to a newspaper account: were trained to work in health care and The smoking ruins were hardly allowed time social service fields. to cool before the work of rebuilding was commenced, without money but rich in Milwaukee Hospital, like other early hospi faith.” tals, was a charitable institution. Donations towards the care of the indigent ill were The supporters of The Passavant rallied, and made by individuals and congregations. the impressive three-story cream city brick Some sponsored beds; others stocked the ice hospital opened in 1885 at a cost of house or donated livestock. The annual cost $ 1 00,000. The “ Good Samaritan” window of medicine and medical instruments in near the elevators in the present-day main 1872 was $93.23; the cost of keeping live- lobby of the West campus at one time stock was $172.03. In order to help finance graced the waiting room of this building, operation of the hospital, the first non-chari which was razed in 1932. A chapel was also ty patients were admitted in 1 273 at a rate built at this time, and the white marble altar of $5 per week. and stained glass windows that currently adorn the Fritschel Memorial In 1874, Dr. Nicholas Senn became the Auditorium/Chapel were salvaged when this “physician in charge of patients” at building was taken down in 1969. Milwaukee Hospital, where he began a surgical career that would lead him to world With this new facility, Milwaukee Hospital fame. Senn was one of the first surgeons to was poised for the new century — a time wear boiled cotton gloves during surgery. when monumental discoveries in general He directed surgical on-lookers to stand science would be given practical application back from the operating table so that the in medical care. For the first time, citizens sweat would not drip from their beards into began to seek out rather than avoid care in patients, and he is said to have performed hospitals. The average stay in a hospital at the first appendectomy in the state in 1 889. that time was 26 days. Senn’s reputation spread rapidly, and brought many “for pay” patients to The benefits of antisepsis, anesthesia, and Milwaukee Hospital from throughout the laboratory science propelled great advances state. He remained on staff until 1891. in surgery and health care. Infection was avoided by boiling instruments. New 3 - 180 %w - procedures were possible with the discovery By 1903, the Deaconesses recognized the of anesthetic agents. By the turn of the cen fact that skilled nurses outside the religious tury the donation of a microscope heralded life of the Deaconess would be needed to the beginning of the laboratory at meet the needs of the growing hospital. In Milwaukee Hospital. response to this need, and to meet AMA mandates, they established the Milwaukee By 1902 part of a room was set aside for Hospital Training School for Nurses. The early x-ray equipment, designed and built by school remained in operation for 70 years local druggist J. S. Janssen. In 1912 Janssen and 2,107 nurses were educated there before used his equipment to locate a bullet in the school closed its doors in 1973. The President Theodore Roosevelt, who had Deaconesses — “the little army of sisters” — been shot by a would-be assassin while visit- supervised the nurses, managed house- ing Milwaukee. hold affairs, and handled much of the office work. In its early years Milwaukee Hospital received advice and financial support from a Milwaukee Hospital expanded in 1908 with “Board of Visitors” — eminent citizens who the dedication of the free-standing 45-bed were charged with “visiting the institution Layton Home for the care of the chronically and reporting to the public its findings.” ill and aged — the first facility of this type in This body secured a special charter in 1895 the city. This addition, which saw 5 8 years as “The Milwaukee Hospital Auxiliary” in of use, was donated and endowed by order to “receive gifts, grants, legacies, Milwaukee philanthropist Frederick Layton. subscriptions and donations” for the benefit of the hospital. In 1903 Layton had donated funds to land- scape the 10-acre “park” surrounding the The incorporators of this Auxiliary included hospital and to construct the ornamental many well-known Milwaukeeans: John H. fence along Cedar Street (Kilbourn Avenue) Van Dyke, Charles F. lisley, F. G. Bigelow, that still exists today — apparently to dis John Pritzlaff, James G. Jenkins, William suade neighborhood children from sledding Plankinton, Ferdinand Kiekhefer, James down the hill in winter and playing on the Spencer, John H.