Access to social-health care : who shall decide what?

Helen Rehr, DSW worked in the Department of Social Work at Mount Sinai Hospital for thirty-one years (1954-1986). She began as Associate Director of the Department of Social Work and later in 1971 became Director of the department until 1980. During that time, she also acted as Director of the Academic Division of Social Work and of the Division of Continuing Education at the Brookdale Center. She held the position as the Edith J. Baerwald Professor of Community Medicine in Social Work, the second to do so after with Doris Seigel, until her retirement in 1986 and worked as special assistant to the Vice President at Mount Sinai Medical Center (then Sam Davis).

Dr. Rehr was born in 1919 and grew up in the Bronx. Both of her parents were originally from Poland, and she had an older brother who passed away when she was eleven. She attended Hunter College, earning a bachelor’s in mathematics with an economics minor in 1940, then went on to Columbia University School of Social Work (CUSSW), where she earned her master’s degree in 1945 and doctorate in 1970.

Before coming to Mount Sinai Hospital in 1954 she worked at: Sydenham Hospital, Grasslands Hospital, Bellevue Hospital, and the New York City Health Department. While at Mount Sinai she developed the Department of Social Work alongside Doris Siegel, including earning seats on the Medical Board for social work and nursing. Dr. Rehr was the Kenneth L.M. Pray Professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work during her sabbatical in 1978 and taught social work in healthcare and applied social work research methodology to its students. She also had visiting professorships at Ben Gurion University, Hebrew University, and Haifa University.

She began the Murray Rosenberg Applied Social Work Research Center and was a member of the editorial board of the Social Work Health Care Journal since 1975. She endowed the Helen Rehr Scholarship Fund to CUSSW’s MS program and has two professorships in her honor, The Helen Rehr Professor at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College and the Helen Rehr/Ruth Fizdale Professor of Health and Mental Health at the Columbia School of Social Work. Dr. Rehr was named a Social Work Pioneer by the National Association of Social Workers, received the Columbia Alumni Federation’s Distinguished Service Alumni Medal in 2004, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame at CUSSW.

Dr. Rehr passed away in 2013 at the age of 93.

Doris Siegel (1914-1971) was the director of the Mount Sinai Hospital Social Service Department from 1954 to 1971. She was made the first Edith J. Baerwald Professor of Community Medicine (Social Work) in 1969. Doris Siegel’s inauguration for this position represented two large firsts; this was the first endowed social work chair at a medical school in the United States and the first woman in an endowed professor position at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Siegel attended Simmons College, graduating in 1935 and then received her Master's degree in social work from the Simmons College of Social Work. In 1970, Simmons College awarded her an alumni achievement award. From 1936-1940, she worked in the social service department at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. Following that, she directed the Social Service Department at Montefiore Hospital in Pittsburgh until 1945, when she became a consultant at the United States Children’s Bureau in Washington DC, a post she held until coming to Mout Sinai in 1954, where she oversaw great growth in social services at Mount Sinai until 1971.

Siegel held various other committee positions. She was the Chairman of the professional advisory committee of the United Hospital Fund. She served on the City Health Department, the American Cancer Society’s New York chapter, the Regional Medical Program of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and the National Association of Social Workers and the Community Council of Greater New York. She also served on the editorial board of Social Case Work.