Now through 2026, we’ll be celebrating a century of milestones—reflecting on our remarkable history while setting our sights on a future that continues to surpass the boldest dreams of our founders and the generations of patients, caregivers, partners, and community members who have shaped our story.
We invite you to visit these pages for updates on events, activities, and news for and about our centennial.
The history of The Miriam Hospital began in 1902 with a small group of women determined to obtain enough money for a down payment of $1,000 for "a place to care for the indigent sick of the Jewish faith." That came to more than $37,000 by today’s count.
The women deployed the tradition of the tzedakah box, also known by its Yiddish word, pushke, a receptacle for collecting money that is designated for charity. The Hebrew word tzedakah comes from the root tzedek, meaning justice.
Since then, extraordinary generosity has been the catalyst for The Miriam Hospital. To fulfill the women's dream, hundreds of people joined their cause going door to door, raising $80,000 in just four weeks. Thanks to their efforts, the first Miriam Hospital opened in 1926 with 63 beds and 14 bassinets. Today, The Miriam has 247 licensed beds and is recognized internationally for the high-quality patient care it provides for a wide and diverse population.
This video showcases the major highlights of our 100 years of history through archival photos and a compelling narrative. It spans from a 19th-century grassroots effort by a small group of Jewish women determined to provide affordable, culturally sensitive healthcare to the recent groundbreaking for The Miriam’s $125 million renovation to enhance patient care.
The Miriam Hospital has its roots in a grassroots effort that began in the late nineteenth century when a small group of Jewish women responded to the need of members of their community to receive affordable and culturally sensitive healthcare. What began as a door-to-door collection to raise funds for their vision grew from a small outpatient clinic at 49 Orms Street in Providence to The Miriam Hospital of today. By 1926, The Miriam Hospital received a corporate charter from the Rhode Island state legislature, formalizing its status as a healthcare institution and officially opening its doors with 63 beds and 14 bassinets.
The Miriam was chartered by an act of the Rhode Island Legislature on March 25, 1926 “to maintain a hospital and in connection therewith a training school for nurses for the sick, disabled, and injured in the City of Providence, State of Rhode Island." It was, however, already in operation, having received its first patient on November 16, 1925.
In a landmark operation, surgeons remove a lung from a 10-year-old girl. It is the first such operation in the country. The girl leaves The Miriam after five-and-a-half months and returns to school.
The former Jewish orphanage at Summit Avenue and Fifth Street is purchased by The Miriam for $40,000. Several years later, the “new” hospital will be located at the site and the facility located on Parade Street will close.
The new hospital opens on January 5. The first patient is four-year-old Paul Seltzer, who has his tonsils removed. He’s the son of Edward I. Seltzer, MD, president of the medical staff. Twenty-seven patients are admitted on the first day.
Ground is broken for the first “Greater Miriam” addition during ceremonies on August 2. Once completed, the years-long effort will bring additional structures to campus as well as more than 100 beds, new operating rooms, and a 20-bed intensive care unit (ICU). A research building will be added to the hospital complex in subsequent years as well.
The first kidney transplantation in Rhode Island is performed at The Miriam on July 17 by Robert W. Hopkins, MD. The recipient is a 17-year-old high school student from Central Falls.
The Summit Avenue School across from The Miriam on Fifth Street is purchased by the hospital. The site will later become the home of the Norman and Rosalie Fain Health Centers.
Lifespan, the holding company formed by The Miriam and Rhode Island hospitals, becomes official in August, after winning approval from state and federal regulators and both boards of trustees.
Dr. Charles B. Kahn, an endocrinologist, is elected chairman of The Miriam Hospital board of trustees, becoming The Miriam’s first doctor to serve in the post.
The Magnet program of the American Association of Nurses certifies that The Miriam Hospital has met its rigorous standards for nursing excellence, marking the first time a New England hospital receives the certification. By 2024, The Miriam achieved Magnet recognition (four-year retention) seven consecutive times, joining only three other hospitals worldwide with this distinction.
Dr. Kathleen C. Hittner, an anesthesiologist and the first female president of the Rhode Island Medical Society, is appointed The Miriam’s president.
Both the Comprehensive Cancer Center, which is established to coordinate cancer care at The Miriam, Rhode Island, and Newport Hospitals, and the state-sponsored tuberculosis clinic, which treats 99 percent of the tuberculosis cases in the state, move to The Miriam Hospital.
The Miriam Hospital is ranked among the nation’s top 100 hospitals for cardiovascular care by the Solucient healthcare information service company, an honor it will win six times.
The Miriam Hospital creates Rhode Island’s first stroke center, which by 2006 becomes the state’s only Certified Stroke Center by JCAHO (now The Joint Commission) to be recognized for its ability to diagnose stroke and promptly administer the clot-busting drug, tPA, and the only hospital in the state to use the Merci Retrieval System.
Jeffrey G. Brier is elected chairman of the board of trustees, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, Benjamin Brier, board president in the 1950s.
Steven Blazar, MD, orthopedic spine surgeon, performs Rhode Island’s first artificial spinal disc replacement surgery at The Miriam.
The Miriam becomes Rhode Island’s first hospital to offer robotic-assisted urologic surgery with its acquisition of the minimally invasive da Vinci robotic surgical system.
The Victor and Gussie Baxt Building is dedicated on June 3. The $77-million addition includes 36 private patient rooms, 10 operating rooms, a radiology suite, and a new site for the gift shop and cafeteria.
The Men’s Health Center, dedicated to providing a comfortable, educational, and confidential environment in which to restore patients’ sexual functioning, is launched at The Miriam and reaffirms the hospital’s commitment to men’s health.
A new, major orthopedic center at The Miriam, specializing in joint replacement, is announced in May. The center goes on to become the award-winning Total Joint Center, the region’s highest volume program for total hip replacement, knee replacement, and shoulder replacement procedures - with clinical and quality outcomes that rank among the best in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report. By 2023, the center earned its fourth Gold Seal of Approval for Advanced Total Hip and Knee Replacement, a symbol of quality that reflects a healthcare organization’s commitment to providing safe and quality patient care.
The Center for Bariatric Surgery is established and soon becomes a recognized regional leader in weight loss surgery. In more than a decade, it earns distinguished awards as one of the first obesity medicine programs in the US and the only one in Rhode Island to earn MBSAQIP accreditation. The center achieves designations as a Center of Excellence from The Clinical Sciences Institute of Optum, a Blue Distinction Center+ from Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island, and is named an Aetna Institute Quality Bariatric Surgery Facility. On July 1, 2025, the center is renamed the Brown University Health Center for Medical and Surgical Weight Loss, reflecting its expanded focus on medical assisted weight loss.
The Miriam Hospital becomes the first in Rhode Island to perform thoracic surgery using minimally invasive robotic technology. The Miriam also opens the Kidney Stone Center, the only center of its kind in the state.
The Minimally Invasive Urology Institute at The Miriam Hospital (MIUI), the region’s first comprehensive institute for urology care, is founded. Its commitment to advancing urology care and transforming lives is marked with steady achievements in cutting-edge research and developing technology. Notably, MIUI ascends to become one of the top urology programs in the US, performing the highest volume of robotic procedures in southern New England.
The Miriam Hospital becomes the only hospital in the state to offer blue light cystoscopy, used to diagnose and treat tumors in the bladder, and UroLift, a new surgical treatment for men with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), at its Minimally Invasive Urology Institute.
A robot-assisted simple prostatectomy is performed for the first time in the region by Gyan Pareek, MD, a co-director of the Minimally Invasive Urology Institute at The Miriam Hospital. Dr. Pareek later becomes chief of the division of urology.
In February, the vice president of student life at Saint Raphael Academy in Pawtucket is the first patient admitted to The Miriam Hospital with COVID-19. He had returned five days earlier from a school-organized trip to Italy.
As the pandemic sweeps across the globe, The Miriam Hospital responds. It launches a new clinic led by Jennie Johnson, MD, to treat patients with long COVID. The Miriam is named a clinical trial site for the National Institutes of Health ACTIV-2 study, testing potential breakthrough treatments for COVID-19 outpatients. Surgeons Marcoandrea Giorgi, MD, and Andrew Luhrs, MD, perform two groundbreaking treatments: the per-oral pyloromyotomy (POP), which treats gastroparesis, a chronic condition that affects the stomach muscles, and the per-oral endoscopic myotomy (POEM), which treats achalasia—a rare disorder that makes it difficult for food and liquid to pass into the stomach.
The Spine Center at The Miriam Hospital earns an Advanced Certification in Spine Surgery (ACSS) from The Joint Commission. The high-volume center brings together the expertise of neurosurgeons from the Norman Prince Spine Institute and orthopedic spine surgeons from the Brown University Health Orthopedics Institute, respected for outstanding clinical and quality outcomes, specializing in highly complex spinal surgeries.
Lifespan becomes Brown University Health. Our new name reflects our expanded affiliation with Brown University, designed to strengthen top-quality patient care, medical education, and biomedical research in Southern New England.
U.S. News & World Report releases its 2024 to 2025 Best Hospitals ratings with The Miriam Hospital named the top hospital in Rhode Island for the 14th consecutive year and receiving a “high performing” score in specialty care.
The Miriam Hospital breaks ground on a transformational $125 million modernization project that will usher in a new era of patient-centered care and featuring a state-of-the-art emergency department, single-occupancy inpatient rooms, and campus-wide infrastructure upgrades to enhance both patient experience and the work environment for The Miriam’s 2,800 dedicated caregivers.
At the turn of the twentieth century, a small group of Jewish women in Rhode Island envisioned available and affordable healthcare for their community. Through their charitable tradition of “pushke” boxes, they founded The Miriam Hospital.
Read about the unearthing of The Miriam Hospital time capsule (JewishRhody.com)
With humble beginnings dating more than a century ago, The Miriam Hospital has accelerated access to high-quality healthcare for all Rhode Islanders and nearby neighboring states, while becoming a premier healthcare provider with world class programs, treatments, and providers.
From its groundbreaking 1932 operation—the first successful lung removal in America performed on a young girl—to its pioneering role in 21st-century medicine as the first hospital in Rhode Island to offer robot-assisted surgery, The Miriam Hospital has stood as a pillar of innovation, compassion, and excellence in care. As a vital part of a world-class healthcare system, The Miriam continues to set the standard for patient-centered excellence. For 13 consecutive years, it has been the top-ranked hospital in Rhode Island by U.S. News & World Report, most recently in the 2024 to 2025 rankings. Since 1998, The Miriam has also earned Magnet Recognition for nursing excellence—an elite distinction achieved by only four hospitals worldwide for seven consecutive cycles—underscoring its unwavering commitment to delivering the highest quality care.
As it celebrates its centennial year, The Miriam Hospital honors its legacy of healing while boldly building the future of medicine for the next 100 years.
The experiences of those who have come through our doors have filled a century with stories of healing, health, and hope. Is one of the stories yours? We’re inviting everyone to be a part of our centennial celebration.
Seventy-five years after it was hidden away, a time capsule was removed from a cornerstone of The Miriam Hospital. Those who tucked it away had no idea of the technology that was to develop during those years.
Advancements in technology have improved healthcare and the recording of its history. A team from Brown University Health’s marketing and communications department attended and videoed the big reveal.
