History
The Medical Society of Delaware (MSD), the third oldest society of its kind in the United States, was incorporated on February 3, 1789. Although much has changed in the medical profession since the inception of MSD, the principle upon which this society of physicians was founded remains steadfast: to further the ideals of the medical profession, thereby enhancing the health and well-being of the citizens of Delaware. We exist to serve our members and, through them, all Delawareans. We do this through advocacy, representation, education, and the advancement of public health and well-being.
Medical Society of Delaware
Core Purpose
An organizations core purpose statement articulates its reason for being, why it exists, and serves as a perpetual guiding star on the horizon. It is consistent through time and does not change; is unaffected by changing circumstances, changes in leadership, management trends or fads and technological breakthroughs. For volunteer organizations, a clear core purpose statement is especially important as there is constant change in the volunteer leadership and the core purpose will help to keep the organization grounded and focused.
The core purpose of the Medical Society of Delaware is:
To guide, serve and support Delaware Physicians, promoting the practice and professional of medicine to enhance the health of our communities.
Medical Society of Delaware’s
Core Values
Core values shape and guide how people do their work and behave while doing it. An organization’s core values state its essential and enduring beliefs and are not to be compromised for financial gain or short-term expediency. They will help bring out the energies and talents of the organization’s people and provide a framework for how people are to perform and behave. The 1998 planning team articulated the following as MSD’s core values.
- Honesty and integrity: treating each other in an ethical, trustworthy and sincere manner that reflect the highest personal and professional standards.
- Professionalism: committed to the tenets of the Hippocratic oath in serving our patients, peers and profession.
- Effective: able to determine what is important and to get that done; not only doing things right but doing the right things.
- Responsive: proactively responding to the needs of our members, profession and communities.
- Competent: capable and qualified to serve our members and the profession; remaining current with industry trends and member needs.
Hippocratic Oath
(Modern Version)
I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:
I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.
I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of over treatment and therapeutic nihilism.
I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.
I will not be ashamed to say “I know not”, nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery.
I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.
I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.
I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.
I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.
If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy a life and art, respect while I live and remember with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.
Written in 1964 by Louis Lasagna, Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at tufts University, and used in many medical schools today.
Declaration of Professional Responsibility
Medicine’s Social Contract with Humanity
Preamble
Never in the history of human civilization has the well being of each individual been so inextricably linked to that of every other. Plagues and pandemics respect no national borders in a world of global commerce and travel. Wars and act of terrorism enlist innocents as combatants and mark civilians as targets. Advances in medical science and genetics, while promising great good, may also be harnessed as agents of evil. The unprecedented scope and immediacy of these universal challenges demand concerted action and response by all.
As physicians, we are bound in our response by a common heritage of caring for the sick and the suffering. Through the centuries, individual physicians have fulfilled this obligation by applying their skills and knowledge competently, selflessly and at times heroically. Today, our profession must reaffirm its historical commitment to combat natural and man-made assaults on the health and well being of humankind. Only by acting together across geographic and ideological divides can we overcome such powerful threats. Humanity is our patient.
Declaration
We, the members of the world community of physicians, solemnly commit ourselves to:
I. Respect human life and the dignity of every individual.
II. Refrain from supporting or committing crimes against humanity and condemn all such acts.
III. Treat the sick and injured with competence and compassion and without prejudice.
IV. Apply our knowledge and skills when needed, though doing so may put us at risk.
V. Protect the privacy and confidentiality of those for whom we care and breach that confidence only when keeping it would seriously threaten their health and safety or that of others.
VI. Work freely with colleagues to discover, develop and promote advances in medicine and public health that ameliorate suffering and contribute to human well-being.
VII. Educate the public and polity about present and future threats to the health of humanity.
VIII. Advocate for social, economic, educational and political changes that ameliorate suffering and contribute to human well-being.
IX. Teach and mentor those who follow us for they are the future of our caring profession.
We make these promises solemnly, freely and upon our personal and professional honor.