The future of the Ulster Medical Society?

It is over 25 years since Professor D A D Montgomery gave his presidential address to the Society-"The Ulster Medical Society: Quo Vadis". I was then the Honorary Secretary, trying to record some minutes, and the platform party was all correctly attired in dinner jackets, so I do not now recall much of the lecture. But I was recently stimulated to go back to the published address in the Ulster Medical Journal, and much of what he said then is even more relevant today(l). So where have we come from, and where are we going? It will soon be 200 years since 19 of "the most respectable physicians, surgeons and apothecaries, not merely of the town but of the vicinity like-wise" enrolled under the designation of the Belfast Medical Society.(2) That was in 1806, and in 1862 we amalgamated to become the Ulster Medical Society. "Those responsible were activated by a spirit for mutual improvement in their common profession.. .". Desmond Montgomery charted the historical developments in medicine and society which led to the incorporation of Colleges as professional guilds to safeguard the status as well as the practice of their Fellows:-Physicians in London in 1518, Barber-Surgeons in 1540, and their many successors in similar and evolving specialities. But a college was, and still is, different from a medical society where the desire for collective education and mutual self-help between all members of the profession is paramount. Such medical societies did arise, and still exist in various forms-the Manchester Medical Society, the Royal Liverpool Medical Institution, the Royal Academy of Medicine in Dublin, and smaller more local groups which have come and gone with the years. The Ulster Medical Society has survived for nearly two centuries with the unwritten mission statement of unity of purpose, friendship and the opportunity for professional education (3). In London, similar things were happening, though on a somewhat larger scale. The Medical and Chirurgical Society of London was founded only one year earlier, in 1805, and after various vicissitudes eventually merged with 15 established specialized London societies to become the Royal Society of Medicine in 1907. Practice and Occupational Medicine have followed, and new sections are continuously in evolution (4). But there are problems in even the best ordered societies. In London and elsewhere, some of the older sections and societies languished and many meetings were poorly attended, largely by retired members. Specialization under the …