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Editor-at-Large: Why does
it feel as if WCMS and MSMS are in a survival contest? Richard E. Burney, MD
The Michigan State Medical Society and the Washtenaw County Medical Society are each facing existential crises arising from falling paid membership. Similar crises in other counties have led to an attrition in county medical societies, which were at one time -- prior to the Internet, social media, and the explosion of subspecialization -- the foundation blocks of the state society. There are 83 counties in Michigan; there are now staffed, functioning medical society structures in only 18. Others exist in name only.
Faced with the challenge of falling active, non-retired membership, MSMS has sought new ways to gain new members, such as offering discounted membership dues to large physician groups and direct marketing to physicians, bypassing the county societies, as if membership were a commodity. To further facilitate this approach, the MSMS Board in October 2020 adopted an interpretation of the MSMS bylaws to allow members to join component societies in a geographic area where they neither live nor work. As a result, to be a member of MSMS, one need not be a member of one’s “component” (i.e., local) medical society but can be assigned to a distant one for administrative purposes whether you live or work in that county or not.
This policy has had the effect of potentially siphoning members from staffed, functioning county societies and placing them in non-staffed (i.e., no local dues) society districts, with loss of potential revenue for the affected component society. This, not surprisingly, has been a
matter of great concern to the remaining active local societies who have been cut out of the process and find themselves unable to obtain membership lists to find out if they have lost members as a result of this policy. This situation has led to vigorous debate at the House of Delegates, which this year passed a resolution calling for a bylaw amendment (SEE BOX) to undo the current policy in an effort to “uphold the integrity and vitality of the state and county medical societies.”
What Roles do Medical Societies Play: Yesterday and Today
State and local medical societies in Michigan were organized over in the first half of the 19th century when Michigan was still a Territory to establish standards for the education and training of those wishing to call themselves physicians and to regulate the practice of medicine. In 1819, the forward-thinking Michigan Territorial Legislative Council passed an act “to incorporate Medical Societies for the purpose of regulating the Practice of Physic and Surgery in the Territory of Michigan.” Under this act, the medical Society of the Territory of Michigan was organized in Detroit in August 1819. The law provided that licensed physicians in any county, upon application to the Territorial Medical Society, were granted the right to form a county society, which, within the limits of the county, had the same rights as a parent society. On June 12, 1827, a group of physicians were granted permission to form the Washtenaw County Medical Society, and three
8 Washtenaw County Medical Society BULLETIN FALL 2021