(Mary) Alice Bennett, MD — administration (hospital directors), education (teaching), psychiatry, obstetrics and gynecology
Courtesy From the Collections of the University of Pennsylvania Archives
Dr. Alice Bennett (1851–1925) improved the treatment of women patients with mental illness by abolishing restraints and introducing occupational therapy at the state hospital where she served as superintendent. In 1880, she became the first woman to obtain a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, and the first woman superintendent of the women’s section of the State Hospital for the Insane in Norristown, Pennsylvania. In 1890, she was the first woman to be elected president of the Montgomery County (Pennsylvania) Medical Society.
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