Kensington Hospital | |
---|---|
Geography | |
Location | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
Links | |
Website | kensingtonhospital |
Kensington Hospital, formerly known as Kensington Hospital for Women, is the last remaining independent hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The hospital was established in the 1880s by Howard A. Kelly, MD, who later became one of the founding professors at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the chair of gynecological surgery of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The hospital was added to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places in 2019.
In the mid 1880s, Dr. Howard A. Kelly opened a gynecological clinic on Diamond Street in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia with the goal of providing access to healthcare for working-class women. He purchased a mansion on Kensington's Norris Square in 1890 with the help local philanthropists and converted the building into a women's hospital. [1] The hospital eventually expanded to inhabit structures from 128-140 Diamond Street. [2] Kensington Hospital for Women was sixth women's hospital in the United States. [3]
The hospital experienced financial difficulties as a result of The Great Depression and later lost a number of doctors and nurses when their services were needed elsewhere during World War II. The hospital closed in February 1945, but was purchased and reopened in 1946 as a general, nonprofit hospital by four doctors including Drs. Benjamin Ulanski and Leopold Vaccaro. The doctors began offering additional services and renamed the facility Kensington Hospital as it was no longer exclusively for women. [1] [2] Around this time, it is noted that the hospital began receiving financial support from a number of local Jewish philanthropists, some of whom sat on the hospital's board and owned nearby factories. [2]
By the 1960s, the hospital could not compete with larger medical centers who had access to the most up-to-date technologies and nearly merged with other hospitals on a number of occasions. As the neighborhood's African American and Latino populations grew, the hospital employed a bi-lingual staff to better serve the community. [1] [2]
The hospital continued to struggle financially through the mid-1980s and was forced to pay a $400,000 fine when it was discovered that two hospital administrators had defrauded Medicare and Medicaid. [2] [4] It remained open and began specializing in treating those suffering from addiction. [1]
The Kensington neighborhood was hard-hit by the opioid crisis and has been referred to as the "largest open-air narcotics market for heroin on the East Coast". [5] Enforcement programs and gentrification in adjacent neighborhoods like Fishtown has caused some drug-related activity to move north. Kensington Hospital continues to serve the neighborhood and specializes in treating infections related to drug and alcohol abuse. [1]
It remains the only independent hospital in Philadelphia. [1]
Pediatrics is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, and adolescents. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends people be under pediatric care up to the age of 21. A medical doctor who specializes in this area is known as a pediatrician, or paediatrician. The word pediatrics and its cognates mean "healer of children"; they derive from two Greek words: παῖς and ἰατρός. Pediatricians work both in hospitals, particularly those working in its subspecialties such as neonatology, and as outpatient primary care physicians.
A skid row or skid road is an impoverished area, typically urban, in English-speaking North America whose inhabitants are people "on the skids". This specifically refers to the poor, the homeless or others either considered disreputable or forgotten by society. A skid row may be anything from an impoverished urban district to a red-light district to a gathering area for the homeless. In general, skid row areas are inhabited or frequented by individuals marginalized by poverty or through drug addiction. Urban areas considered skid rows are marked by high vagrancy, and they often feature cheap taverns, dilapidated buildings, and drug dens as well as other features of urban blight. Used figuratively, it may indicate the state of a poor person's life.
The Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) is the teaching hospital and biomedical research facility of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. It was founded in 1889 using money from a bequest of over $7 million by city merchant, banker/financier, civic leader and philanthropist Johns Hopkins (1795–1873). Johns Hopkins Hospital and its school of medicine are considered to be the founding institutions of modern American medicine and the birthplace of numerous famous medical traditions including rounds, residents and house staff. Many medical specialties were formed at the hospital including neurosurgery, by Dr. Harvey Cushing; cardiac surgery by Dr. Alfred Blalock; and child psychiatry, by Dr. Leo Kanner.
The Black Mafia, also known as the Philadelphia Black Mafia (PBM), Black Muslim Mafia and Muslim Mob, was a Philadelphia-based African-American organized crime syndicate. The organization began as a small criminal collective, known for holding up neighborhood crap games and dealing in the illegal drug business, but at its height of operation until about 1975, it managed to consolidate power and control a large portion of criminal activity in various African-American neighborhoods throughout Philadelphia, the Delaware Valley, and South Jersey, including Atlantic City. In addition to drug trafficking, burglary, and armed robbery, the Black Mafia was also engaged in traditional organized crime activities such as extortion, racketeering, prostitution, loansharking, number running and other illegal gambling rackets.
John Work Garrett, was an American merchant turned banker who became president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) in 1858 and led the railroad for nearly three decades. The B&O became one of the most important American railroads by the time Garrett died, and Garret would also become a noted philanthropist. He provided crucial support for the Union cause during the Civil War, expanded the railroad to reach Chicago, Illinois, and competed with the Pennsylvania Railroad for access to New York City.
Mantua is a neighborhood in the West Philadelphia section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is located north of Spring Garden Street, east of 40th Street, south of Mantua Avenue, and west of 31st Street. The neighborhood's northern and western reaches are predominantly working-class and African American, although its southern border with Powelton Village has seen recent gentrification and an influx of Drexel University and University of Pennsylvania student renters.
The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM), located in Baltimore, Maryland, is the research-intensive medical school of Johns Hopkins University. Founded in 1893, the School of Medicine shares a campus with the Johns Hopkins Hospital, established in 1889. Johns Hopkins has consistently ranked among the top medical schools in the United States, in terms of the number of competitive research grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health, among other measures.
Kensington is a neighborhood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its placement within the broader division of sections of Philadelphia is debated, but it is often considered as a dividing line between or belonging to both the Lower Northeast section of Philadelphia and North Philadelphia. It is generally considered part of the Philadelphia River Wards. Modern Kensington is larger than the former Kensington District, and unlike Kensington District it does not include Fishtown. As with all neighborhoods in Philadelphia, the lack of any official designation means the boundaries of the area vary between sources and over time.
Point Breeze is a multicultural neighborhood in South Philadelphia in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It is bounded by 25th Street to the west, Washington Avenue to the north, Broad Street to the east, and Mifflin Street to the south. Southwest Center City lies to its north, and Passyunk Square lies to its east. Point Breeze is separated from Grays Ferry to the west by a CSX railway viaduct over 25th Street.
Howard Atwood Kelly, M.D., was an American gynecologist. He obtained his B.A. degree and M.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He, William Osler, William Halsted, and William Welch together are known as the "Big Four", the founding professors at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. He is credited with establishing gynecology as a specialty by developing new surgical approaches to gynecological diseases and pathological research. He also developed several medical innovations, including the improved cystoscope, Kelly's clamp, Kelly's speculum, and Kelly's forceps. Because Kelly was a famous prohibitionist and Fundamentalist Christian, many of his contemporaries expressed skepticism towards his medical professionalism.
Max Brödel was a medical illustrator. Born in Leipzig, Germany, he began his artistic career after graduating from the Leipzig Academy of Fine Arts, working for Dr. Carl Ludwig. Under Dr. Carl Ludwig's instruction, Brödel gained a basic knowledge of medicine and became recognized for his detailed medical illustrations. In the late 1890s, he was brought to the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore to illustrate for Harvey Cushing, William Halsted, Howard Kelly, and other notable clinicians. In addition to being a prolific medical illustrator, he developed new artistic techniques such as the carbon dust technique that helped the advancement of the quality and accuracy of medical illustrations for physicians. In 1911, he presided over the creation of the first Department of Art as Applied to Medicine; located at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, it continues to train medical illustrators to this day. His graduates spread out across the world, and have founded a number of other academic programs.
The Philadelphia Badlands is a section of North Philadelphia and Lower Northeast Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, that is known for an abundance of open-air recreational drug markets and drug-related violence. It has amorphous and somewhat disputed boundaries, but is generally agreed to include the 25th police district.
Glenwood is a neighborhood in North Philadelphia. It is located in the vicinity of North Philadelphia Station to West York Street.
Urogynecology or urogynaecology is a surgical sub-specialty of urology and gynecology.
Jamie Moffett is an American independent motion picture director, producer, and social activist.
The Kensington Renewal Initiative (KRI) is a Philadelphia-based advocacy and community development organization founded by film director, Jamie Moffett. KRI was established to create a program model to rehabilitate blighted properties and dilapidated lots and transforming them into owner occupied homes for the purpose of significantly decreasing crime and drug activity in low income, urban neighborhoods throughout the United States. At the time of KRI’s launch in 2011, the Kensington neighborhood was the poorest in Philadelphia and had the highest rates of vacant property, consequently resulting in the highest rates of violent crime and drug use in Philadelphia. As a result of the collaborative efforts of KRI and its local and state partners, residents of one block in Kensington reported a significant decrease in the volume of criminal activity in the neighborhood in 2013.
The nation of Liechtenstein has a universal health care system with decentralized, free market elements through mandated health insurance coverage for every person residing in the country.
Mary Amanda Dixon Jones was an American physician and surgeon in the field of obstetrics and gynecology, who the first American physician to propose and perform a total hysterectomy to treat a tumor in the uterine muscle (myoma). Jones had a successful career until her work doing gynecological surgery at Woman's Hospital of Brooklyn drew the attention of the news media, and she was the subject of a 24-article investigative expose by the Brooklyn Eagle. As a result, she was charged with one count of murder, and one count of manslaughter. She was found not guilty, and sued the Eagle. She lost the libel case, and was forced to close her medical practice. Jones then spent the last years of her medical career doing research on the tissue pathology of gynecological conditions.
Mount Sinai Hospital was a hospital in Philadelphia in the United States.
Jennifer R. Niebyl (1942) is a Canadian obstetrics and gynecology researcher and professor. She has made significant contributions to the understanding of drugs in pregnancy and lactation.