The Charleston County Medical Society (CCMS), founded in 1951, is a lineal descendant of the first medical society of the state, the Medical Society of South Carolina (MSSC). This older society was established in Charleston in 1789 with a view to developing a statewide membership. In 1848 it became one of the component district societies, which made up the South Carolina Medical Association (SCMA)
. When the districts of the state were divided into counties, the Medical Society of South Carolina assumed the status of a county society. In that year the complexities of managing Roper Hospital, which it owned, had become sufficiently great enough that a new and independent group dedicated entirely to the organizational affairs of physicians and their patients was needed. The Charleston County Medical Society was created for that purpose and replaced the older society as the local unit of the South Carolina Medical Association while the Medical Society of South Carolina has continued to operate Roper Hospital, The SCMA is, in turn, a component of the American Medical Association (AMA). Thus it is through the local, state, and national associations that individual physicians are represented in their efforts to improve medical care to their patients.
