(September 20, 1880-November 30, 1952)
Born in Warialda, New South Wales, Australia
Developed a series of muscle exercises for polio patients
Previously, standard treatment had been to immobilize the affected limbs with splints
Opened treatment clinics in Australia and the US
Portrayed by Rosalind Russell in the film ‘Sister Kenny’ (1946)

She was not an accredited nurse.
Her outspokenness alienated many doctors and led to a falling out with the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis.
She was usually referred to as Sister Kenny, causing many Americans, unfamiliar with the British Commonwealth custom of using ‘Sister’ to refer to a senior nurse, to erroneously think she was a nun.

During World War I, she made sixteen round trips on transports carrying troops to England and returning with wounded soldiers.
She improved the stretcher used by ambulance services.
She was the first person to displace Eleanor Roosevelt at #1 in Gallup’s Most Admired Women poll (1951).
Thousands of polio patients, including Alan Alda and Martin Sheen, credited the therapy she developed with enabling them to walk again.

Credit: C. Fishel

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• C. Fishel's Profiles [Series 63]
• Gallup/CNN/USA Today's Most Admired Women of the Year (Ranked: 1951)
• Gallup/CNN/USA Today's Most Admired Women [1948] (Ranked: 3)
• Gallup/CNN/USA Today's Most Admired Women [1951] (Ranked: 1)
• I Adopted a Child
• I Come from Oz
• I Died in 1952 (Ranked: 72)
• I Have Parkinson Disease
• I was Home Schooled
• Nurses
• Profiles 38001-38250 (Ranked: 38240)