Helen Wyandt Reihart, MS
Item
Title
Helen Wyandt Reihart, MS
Date
7 May 1988
Description
Helen Wyandt Reihart, MS, was the first medical technologist in Nebraska and the first to join UNMC’s faculty. Born in 1895, Ms. Reihart received a Bachelor of Science degree from Simmons College in Boston in 1918. From 1918–1921, she served in the U.S. Navy as a yeoman first class and was stationed at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Chelsea, Massachusetts, where she researched the 1918 flu pandemic.
In 1923, Ms. Reihart established the first clinical laboratory at the University of Nebraska Hospital. She taught clinical pathology, supervised the clinical clerks’ work, and directed medical and nursing students in the dispensary and laboratory. In 1928, she was one of the first individuals in the nation to receive certification and registration as a medical technologist by the American Society of Clinical Pathologists Board of Registry. She also helped establish the first nationally accredited medical technology program, still going strong and offered through the College of Allied Health Professions.
Ms. Reihart made significant contributions to research laboratory science in virology and cytogenetics. She was involved in confirming the first case of polio in Omaha and worked with the department of public health on a polio surveillance program for the state of Nebraska. She authored papers on the immune response to the Asian influenza vaccine, the epidemiology of the Asian flu in Nebraska, and on elliptocytosis, an inherited abnormality in red blood cells. With her veterinarian husband, she also studied warfarin poisoning in pigs and canine distemper. Ms. Reihart retired from UNMC in 1968. She passed away in 1998 at age 102.
In 1923, Ms. Reihart established the first clinical laboratory at the University of Nebraska Hospital. She taught clinical pathology, supervised the clinical clerks’ work, and directed medical and nursing students in the dispensary and laboratory. In 1928, she was one of the first individuals in the nation to receive certification and registration as a medical technologist by the American Society of Clinical Pathologists Board of Registry. She also helped establish the first nationally accredited medical technology program, still going strong and offered through the College of Allied Health Professions.
Ms. Reihart made significant contributions to research laboratory science in virology and cytogenetics. She was involved in confirming the first case of polio in Omaha and worked with the department of public health on a polio surveillance program for the state of Nebraska. She authored papers on the immune response to the Asian influenza vaccine, the epidemiology of the Asian flu in Nebraska, and on elliptocytosis, an inherited abnormality in red blood cells. With her veterinarian husband, she also studied warfarin poisoning in pigs and canine distemper. Ms. Reihart retired from UNMC in 1968. She passed away in 1998 at age 102.
Rights
From the McGoogan Health Sciences Library Special Collections and Archives