Our beginning
In January 1900, the BC Medical Association was established, with Dr R.E. McKechnie, a surgeon from Nanaimo, as its president. Founded on two primary principles, the association was to guard and strengthen the economic security of doctors and to promote education so that the best medical minds had a forum to share the knowledge of the profession. Membership was open to BC doctors with an annual fee of just $2.00. The first annual meeting, held in August 1900, opened with an address by the president on "The Relation of the Profession to Politics," in which Dr McKechnie emphasized the importance of the association in the influence of legislation that would protect the practice of medicine.
After decades of advocating for physicians’ best interests, in 2014 the BCMA was re-named Doctors of BC to better describe who we are. Today, the association fervently supports 16,000+ physician members and tirelessly works with government to enhance BC’s health care system, as well as improve the lives of BC’s physicians and the health of their patients.
You can find a more detailed history of Doctors of BC’s past in Dr Brad Fritz’s 2017 book “The BCMA, Then and Now”, available for free via PDF.
See the list of Doctors of BC’s past presidents.
