Center for a Healthy Maryland

|September 2023

Dear FutureDoc: Please Hang in There, We Need You!

Vital Signs: The Campaign to Prevent Physician Suicide

In response to recent findings in the 2023 Survey of Americ’a Current and Future Physicians, The Physicians Foundation and The Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation have released an urgent call for systemic change to the health industry to improve the future of medicine. In an effort to accelerate that change the Foundations have launched Vital Signs: The Campaign to Prevent Physician Suicide which supports the wellbeing of physicians throughout the stages of their career. Vital Signs includes National Physician Suicide Awareness Day, which was on September 17, and Dear FutureDoc to encourage both current and future doctors to reflect on their mental health and wellbeing and take concrete steps to practice self-care and care of their fellow practitioners.

Coronavirus Resource Center

The Center for a Healthy Maryland, The Maryland State Medical Society Foundation was established in 1976 as a 501(c)(3) corporation to support the advances of practice of medicine, enhance the quality of medical care, promote the health of the citizens of Maryland, explore the history of medicine in Maryland and preserve MedChi’s archives.

The Center for a Healthy Maryland is housed at the MedChi’s Baltimore Office.

The Center’s mission is to: advance the practice of medicine, enhance the quality of medical care, promote the health of the citizens of the State of Maryland, explore the history of medicine in Maryland, and preserve MedChi’s archives.

“Since 1799, MedChi has worked to create an atmosphere both effective and genial, so that members whom come to the building feel that interesting and important things are going on under its roof.” A quote from Marcia Noyes’ eulogy in 1946 by Albert Chatard, M.D.

The Center for a Healthy Maryland’s public health programs are dedicated to improving the health status of the citizens of Maryland through education, advocacy and linkage to resources.

“It is a physician’s ethical responsibility to take cognizance of a colleague’s inability to practice medicine by reason of physical or mental illness, including alcoholism or drug dependence…Accountability to the public through assurance of competent care to patients by physicians and other health professionals is a paramount responsibility of organized medicine.” -AMA, 1973

With the advent of digitization, our library is no longer used by members, but it’s still mostly intact. Much of our archive collection remains available for research either here on-site, or at the nearby Maryland Historical Society. Our MedChi Archives blog explores topics as diverse as things that we find in the stacks, to the architectural details on our buildings. Additionally, there are lists of the portraits in our collection, along with details of each sitter; all of our Presidents through the decades; speakers at the Hunt History of Medicine lectures over the years, and a history of our building which was home to School #49.

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The Center for a Healthy Maryland is housed at the MedChi, The Maryland State Medical Society’s Baltimore Office.

About Us

Programs

The Center’s programs include supporting the study of medicine and the diffusion of medical knowledge through the continuing medical education of physicians; providing programs to maintain the wellness of practicing physicians serving the public; preserving and learning from the past history of medical care in Maryland; educating the public about medical issues, and promoting public health programs.