Gisela von Poswik

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]

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]