Hay, George A.

From 1925 to 1970, the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania overcame significant obstacles, adapting to both survive and prosper in a dramatically evolving society. In 1930, the school and hospital moved to a new and larger facility in East Falls, then a burgeoning middleclass neighborhood in northwest Philadelphia. The excitement and optimism resulting from the move was quickly tempered, however, by the Great Depression, which left the institution in financial turmoil. Added to that, in 1935, an inspection of the school, hospital and its governance conducted by the Council on Medical Education and Hospitals of the American Medical Association cost WMC its membership in the Association of American Medical Colleges temporarily. The College also explored the financial and administrative benefits of merging with at least two women’s hospitals in the Philadelphia area; Kensington Women’s Hospital and the Woman’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

George A. Hay served as comptroller for WMC during the mid-twentieth century, participating in major administrative decisions, particularly in the early1940s and 1960s. Hay was involved in a massive administrative reorganization in 1942, exploring the benefit of mergers with Kensington Women’s Hospital and the Woman’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and he served on the Committee on Admissions Policies, which decided in 1970 that WMC should admit male students and change its name to Medical College of Pennsylvania.

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