Profile: The Maryland State Medical Society

Mission The Mission of MedChi (pronounced med-kî), The Maryland State Medical Society, is to serve as Maryland's foremost advocate and resource for physicians, their patients and the public health.

History
In January 1799, in Annapolis, with 101 leaders of the medical profession representing most of Maryland's counties present, the Maryland Legislature approved a petition for a charter for an incorporated society of physicians in Maryland to be known as the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of the State of Maryland.  (Chirurgical was the common spelling of surgical at the time.)

As written in the society's incorporation, this special act of the Maryland  Legislature was intended to "prevent the citizens (of Maryland) from risking their lives in the hands of ignorant practitioners or pretenders to the healing art."  The society became the seventh of its kind in the country.

Directed by its charter, the first meeting was held in Annapolis on the first Monday in June, 1799.

For the society's bicentennial year in 1999, after decades of infrequent debate about the subject, it was finally decided to change the society's name to its commonly-known trade name, MedChi, The Maryland State Medical Society.  

Some of the notable achievements in MedChi's formative years were the initiation and creation of a Maryland medical college in 1807, which grew into the University of Maryland School of Medicine.  A medical  library was established in 1830. The library grew rapidly under the guidance of Maryland medical luminaries and bibliophiles.  

MedChi members established the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery (a school of the University of Maryland) in 1839, the first institution of its kind in the world, and in 1857, working with pharmacists, created a college of pharmacy.  After years of lobbying the state legislature, a state board of health  was created in 1874 and a board of medical examiners was created to license physicians in 1892.

Today, MedChi is one of the most progressive medical societies in the nation representing about 6,500 physicians statewide practicing in more than 50 medical specialties.  MedChi is composed of 24 component medical societies, plus a medical students' and residents' section.  MedChi is a component of the American Medical Association.