History of Friends Hospital
Friends Hospital designs and opens Philadelphia’s first recovery-oriented inpatient unit.
Friends Hospital is designated a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior.
The Greystone Program, a residential treatment program for adults, opens on hospital grounds.
Friends Hospital becomes accredited as a training site by the American Psychological Association.
Bonsall and Tuke Buildings are completed, allowing the hospital to provide care for 192 individuals.
The Hygeia Building (named for the Greek goddess of health) is built specifically to offer hydrotherapy as a treatment alternative. Hygeia also housed a natural science museum, photography room and nurses’ quarters.
One of the first two-year training schools for nurses who wished to specialize in mental health opened on the Friends Hospital campus. It was unique for including certifications in both general and psychiatric nursing. The first class of two men and four women graduated in 1896.
Anna Broomall, M.D., joins the staff as a consulting doctor, making Friends Hospital among the first to accept women psychiatric physicians.
Friends Hospital builds its first greenhouse to enhance its commitment to the art and science of horticulture.
As a forerunner to pet therapy, small animals such as rabbits and lambs are introduced into patients’ exercise areas as testing had shown that such animals are familiar and comforting.
Friends Hospital founded by the Quakers and originally called “The Asylum for Persons Deprived of the Use of Their Reason.
Located on a beautiful 100-acre campus, Friends Hospital, the nation’s oldest private psychiatric hospital, continues to offer a quiet refuge where healing has taken place for nearly two centuries. Friends Hospital offers a continuum of care including level of care assessments; specially designed inpatient units for adolescents, adult and older…Read More
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Friends Hospital
- 4641 Roosevelt Blvd
Philadelphia, PA 19124 - Toll-Free Phone: 800-889-0548
- Local Phone: 215-831-4600















