Alta Bates

Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, Summit Campus, in Oakland.

Alta Alice Miner Bates (December 11, 1879 – November 30, 1955) was an American nurse anesthetist and the founder of the hospital now known as Alta Bates Summit Medical Center. She was the first registered nurse in Humboldt County, California, and later the first nurse anesthetist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Bates managed Alta Bates Hospital, serving as hospital director from 1905 to 1949.

Career In 1904, Bates cared for women and their newborn babies in her parents' home on Walnut Street in Berkeley, California. At the time, there was no local hospital. Established with about $100, the Bates Sanitarium also served as a nursing school. Its first class of nursing students graduated in 1906. Bates was a prominent early anesthetist in California, administering over 14,000 anesthetics.

After training over 330 nurses, Bates's nursing school closed in 1934.

Due to health problems, Bates retired from her role as the director of the hospital in 1949. She died in 1955 at age 75.