Helen Rehr

Helen Rehr (December 16, 1919 – February 13, 2013) was an American medical social worker, director of the Department of Social Work at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.

Early life Helen Rehr was born in New York, the daughter of Philip Rehr and Rose Rehr. Both of her parents were born in Poland. She attended Hunter College for undergraduate studies, before earning a master's degree from Columbia University School of Social Work (CUSSW) in 1945; she completed a doctorate there in 1970.

Career Rehr joined the social work department of Mount Sinai Hospital in 1954, and retired as the department's director in 1986. She helped establish international exchanges for social work scholarship, and helped create the International Conference on Social Work in Health and Mental Health. She was a member of the editorial board for the journal Social Work in Health Care from its founding in 1975, and was a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania (1978–1979), Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1986). induction into the Hunter College Hall of Fame, and into the Columbia University School of Social Work Hall of Fame. She was a fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine. She established both the Helen Rehr Scholarship Fund and the Helen Rehr and Ruth Fizdale Professorship Fund in Health and Mental Health, both at CUSSW.