History

After 14 years of incredible growth, Stred retired and Gordon Smith, MMA’s longtime counsel and lobbyist, was named his successor.

After 25 years of tireless leadership, Smith retired from the MMA to accept an appointment from Governor Janet T. Mills to serve as the state’s Director of Opioid Response. After a national search, MMA’s Chief Operating Officer Andrew B. MacLean was named as the organization’s new CEO.

MMA elected Lisa Ryan, DO as its first osteopathic-trained physician President in 2014.

The worldwide pandemic of COVID-19 hit in 2020. MMA supported its members and worked closely with the Governor and Maine Legislature as the regulatory environment of medicine quickly changed and MMA adapted to serve its members during this challenging period.

The MMA Center for Quality Improvement (MMA-CQI) launched in October 2020. The healthcare care quality improvement consulting program has grown to include 10 staff members and provides services to healthcare professionals and organizations statewide.

In 2023, the Maine Medical Education Foundation (MMEF), the medical student loan program, and the Daniel Hanley Center for Health Leadership merged with the Maine Medical Education Trust (MMET), an affiliate of MMA.  The affiliate’s new governance structure is composed of 11 members, seven of which were appointed by MMA and four by the Hanley Center.

To strengthen the physician advocacy voice, MMA combined its Legislative Committee with that of the Maine Osteopathic Association (MOA).  The MMET is renamed the Hanley Center for Health Leadership & Education.

In response to the change in characteristics of the physician community, MMA adopted a new set of Bylaws and governance structure in 2011. The county medical society-based House of Delegates was replaced with a general membership model with a 30-member Board of Directors.

The new bylaws were deliberate in their intention to ensure representation of all segments of the physician community in Maine.

The association held a gala celebration of its sesquicentennial anniversary in Portland and commemorated the occasion with a plaque and granite monument on Main Street in Brunswick on the site of the former Tontine Hotel. 

Augusta ophthalmologist Maroulla Gleaton, MD, was elected the first female President of the association.

Richard A. Evans, MD, a general surgeon in Machias, is elected as the first African American President of the association.

As early as 1791, local medical clubs met. In 1820, the first statewide organization of Maine physicians was formalized as the Medical Society of Maine, led by Dr. Samuel Emerson of Kennebunk.

“The Medical Society of Maine met at intervals and in 1834 published the first number of a journal. But roads were poor and travel was hard. They finally ceased to meet in 1845.” – Eugene H. Drake, MD, MMA President, 1953

Frank O. Stred was hired as Executive Director and served the association for 14 years.  Under his leadership, MMA built a substantial financial reserve, developed the headquarters campus on Association Drive in Manchester, launched the Maine Medical Education Trust (now the Hanley Center for Health Leadership & Education), and became a leading advocate for physicians and their patients at the Maine State House and with its federal delegation by establishing a full-time lobbyist role with the hiring of attorney Gordon H. Smith.

Dr. Daniel Hanley was appointed to the new position of Executive Director and eventually assumed the role of Editor of the Journal. Dr. Hanley served in the position for 24 years. His legacy includes the Maine Health Information Center (now Onpoint Health Data), the Maine Medical Assessment Foundation (which ceased existence in 2002), the Medical Mutual Insurance Company of Maine, the Maine Medical Education Foundation (now the Medical Student Loan Program of the Hanley Center for Health Leadership & Education), and a host of other projects and interests too numerous to mention. Despite these achievements, he is most fondly remembered for his kind manner and his mentoring of hundreds of young men and women interested in medicine. Dr. Hanley and his wife Maria also raised four children, all of whom are involved in medical careers. Today, Dr. Hanley’s values live on through the work of the Hanley Center for Health Leadership & Education, an affiliate of MMA.

Then-president, Adam Leighton, MD, further professionalized MMA by establishing an office at Maine General Hospital, updating the constitution and bylaws, appointing working committees, and employing an executive secretary. To fund the new structure, dues were increased to $35.

The Maine Medical Journal was established with its first monthly journal in December 1910. Eventually, in 1938 the publication changed its name to The Journal of the Maine Medical Association.

Responding to the different needs of the state’s regions, County Medical Societies began to organize and most established themselves between 1900 and 1910. These local societies reported to and informed the MMA’s work.

MMA established its Committee on Post Graduate Medical Education. The committee went on to host traveling panel discussions and an annual clinical session.

As a result of the MMA’s continued advocacy, the Maine Legislature granted land and some funding to open Maine General Hospital which is the legacy organization to the current Maine Medical Center.

“How distinctly we can hear him [Dr. Gilman] say, ‘For you must bear in mind, gentlemen, the fact that the Maine General Hospital is the child of the Maine Medical Association.’ ” [Unknown source, from the Transactions of MMA]

The MMA adopted The North Star and the Mariner’s Compass, with the motto Natura Duce, Arte Adjuvante as its emblem and title at its sixth Annual Meeting on June 3, 1858. Boston surgeon Oliver Wendell Holmes, MD, designed the emblem.

At its second Annual Meeting, MMA adopted the American Medical Association Code of Medical Ethics which has remained the code to its present day. Members identified major areas of interest which included advocating for a Board of Health, a medical school, and a hospital, and discussed its concerns regarding homeopathy. Members voted, “that the subject of Homeopathy is unworthy of the notice of this Association.”

MMA was founded on April 28, 1853, at a meeting of 27 physicians held at the Tontine Hotel in Brunswick with the collective goals of “promotion of medical science and the regulation of the practice of medicine and surgery in this state.”

The association, which grew to 82 physicians in its first year, held its first Annual Meeting on June 9, 1953.