Studio 2 is scrubbing in! 275 years after doors first opened, we’re hosting a special live remote broadcast from the nation’s very first chartered hospital.
Pennsylvania Hospital was founded in 1751 by radical thinkers like Benjamin Franklin who believed that healthcare should be for everyone, not just those who could afford it. And over the course of nearly 300 years, it has been home to many groundbreaking innovations. The original Pine building saw the first apothecary, the first medical library, and the first surgical amphitheater – where students could actually learn the procedures first-hand.
Founded 15 years before the country itself, how did this institution come to be? How did it revolutionize not just physical healthcare, but also how we think about mental illness? And what modern lessons can we learn from the hospital’s founding idealism?
Guests:
— Stacey Peeples, curator and lead archivist of Pennsylvania Hospital, and the historian who spent 25 years building the archive behind the newly opened Pennsylvania Hospital Museum.
— Stephen Fried, award-winning journalist, lecturer at both Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania, and author of acclaimed nonfiction books including “Rush: Revolution, Madness and Benjamin Rush, the Visionary Doctor Who Became a Founding Father.”