Caritas Carney Hospital

Carney Hospital is a 159-bed community teaching hospital in Dorchester, Massachusetts, affiliated with Tufts University School of Medicine and Tufts Medical Center. The hospital had its beginnings in 1863 in South Boston. It was the first Catholic hospital in New England. Among its first patients were American Civil War soldiers. In 1892 a Carney Hospital team performed the first abdominal surgery in Boston.HistoryCarney Hospital was established in 1863 in South Boston by Andrew Carney with a $75,000 donation and with Sister Ann Alexis Shorb, Carney's choice for its first administrator and a member of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. It was located on the former Hall Jackson Howe estate on Old Harbor Street on Telegraph Hill. The hospital was designed by Boston City Architect Charles Bateman.The 40-bed hospital was the first Catholic hospital in New England. In 1877, the first outpatient department in Boston was established by the hospital in two adjacent houses, followed by the first skin clinic in Boston in 1891. The first abdominal surgery in USA was carried out in the hospital by John Homans in 1882. The same year, the first ovariectomy in Boston was carried out in Carney by Henry I. Bowditch. The first Catholic nursing school in New England was opened in 1892.