Gisela von Poswik
A white woman with dark hair, wearing a high-collared blouse or dress. She is not smiling.
Gisela von Poswik, from a 1911 yearbook.
Born
Gisela Johanna Ida von Poswik

June 19, 1875
Naumburg, Germany
DiedOctober 2, 1940
Scranton, Pennsylvania, U.S.

Gisela Johanna Ida von Poswik (June 19, 1875 – October 2, 1940) was a German-born American nurse and physician and an early specialist in radiology.

Early life

Gisela von Poswik was born in 1875, in Naumburg, Germany, the daughter of Count Jacobus Napoleon von Poswik and Maria Johanna Lieskau von Poswik.[1] She earned a nursing certificate from the Lankenau Hospital of Philadelphia in 1903.[2] In 1911, she earned a medical degree at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania.[3][4]

Career

Von Poswik served in administrative roles at hospitals in Harrisburg and Philadelphia. She was superintendent of a sanitarium in White Haven, Pennsylvania.[5] In a 1907 article for the American Journal of Nursing, she dispensed advice to nurses, including "Never share a bed with your patient."[6] Other scholarly publications by von Poswik included "The Value of the Roentgen Diagnosis, for the General Practitioner, in Gastro-Intestinal Diseases" (1916).[7] She presented a paper titled "The Value of X-Ray Treatment in Cases of Pyorrhea" at a meeting of the Scranton Dental Association in 1922.[8]

She was the first woman member of the American Roentgen Ray Society, read a paper at the Third International Congress of Radiology in Paris in 1931,[9] and was a member of the American Medical Association of Vienna.[10] From 1916 to 1918, she was chief "roentgenologist" (radiologist) at Hahnemann Hospital in Scranton, Pennsylvania.[11] Her obituary in The New York Times noted that "she was the first woman physician in the United States to have her own x-ray equipment."[3] She was the founding president of the Lankenau Hospital School of Nursing Alumnae Association.[2]

Personal life

Gisela von Poswik became a United States citizen in 1919.[12] She died in 1940 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, at age 65.[2][3] A scrapbook of von Poswik's creation, including clippings, notes and photographs, is in the collection of Drexel University College of Medicine Archives and Special Collections.[13]

References

  1. ↑ "Dr. Von Poswik is Dead Following Lengthy Illness". The Times-Tribune. 1940-10-02. p. 3. Retrieved 2020-09-17 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. 1 2 3 "Obituaries". The American Journal of Nursing. 40 (11): 1307. 1940. ISSN 0002-936X. JSTOR 3414683.
  3. 1 2 3 "Dr. Gisela von Poswik; First Woman Physician in U.S. to Have Own X-Ray Equipment". The New York Times. 1940-10-03. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-09-16.
  4. ↑ Scalpel : the 1911 yearbook of the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, page 70. via Internet Archive.
  5. ↑ "Woman Specialist Died at Scranton". Standard-Speaker. 1940-10-03. p. 9. Retrieved 2020-09-17 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ↑ Poswik, Gisela Von (February 1907). "A Word to the Wise". American Journal of Nursing. 7 (5): 357–358. ISSN 0002-936X.
  7. ↑ Association, Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania Alumnae (1916). Transactions of the ... Annual Meeting of the Alumnae Association of the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. The Association. pp. 89–92.
  8. ↑ "Value of X-Ray Treatment is Discussed by Dr. Von Poswik". The Times-Tribune. 1922-04-25. p. 5. Retrieved 2020-09-17 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ↑ "Will Read Paper". The Tribune. 1931-07-15. p. 6. Retrieved 2020-09-17 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ↑ "American Medical Association of Vienna". Radiology. 18 (1): 156. 1932-01-01. doi:10.1148/18.1.156a. ISSN 0033-8419.
  11. ↑ Defense, United States Council of National (1918). Census of women physicians, Nov. 11, 1918. American Women's Hospitals. p. 99.
  12. ↑ "Dr. Von Poswik, Scranton, Dies". The Wilkes-Barre Record. 1940-10-03. p. 9. Retrieved 2020-09-16 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ↑ "MCPHU Archive & Special Collections: Collection Descriptions, Accessions". Retrieved 2020-09-17.
    This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.