Mildred Mitchell-Bateman

Dr. Mildred Mitchell-Bateman was a trailblazer in West Virginia in the professional field of mental health.

A native of Brunswick, Georgia, Mitchell-Bateman attended Barber-Scotia College and Johnson C. Smith University in North Carolina. She received her medical degree from the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania.

She began her career at Lakin State Hospital, which at that time was West Virginia’s mental hospital for Black patients. She was hired as a staff physician at the hospital while in an internship program. She left the hospital and went to Topeka, Kansas, where she opened her own practice and spent three years studying at the Meringer School of Psychiatry.

She returned to Lakin as the clinical director and, three years later, was named the superintendent of the hospital. She was appointed Director of the Department of Mental Health in West Virginia by Governor W.W. Barron four years later. She was the first African American -and the first woman – to be named to this appointment, a position she held for 15 years.

In 1977, Dr. Mitchell-Bateman became a faculty member at Marshall University’s School of Medicine, where she was chair of the Psychology Department.  In 1985, she became the associate clinical director and later the clinical director at Huntington State Hospital, a position she held until her retirement in 2000.

Dr. Mitchell-Bateman received several awards and honors during her career. In 1977, she was chosen by President Jimmy Carter to serve on his Commission on Mental Health. The work from this commission led to the Mental Health System Act in 1980. In 1999, the Huntington State Hospital was renamed the Mildred Mitchel-Bateman Hospital in her honor by then-Gov. Cecil Underwood.