A notification for a meeting of the physicians of Union County was made in October of 1874 to consider organizing a district medical society. Nine Union County physicians attended the meeting held in the Anna office of Dr. J.I. Hale on December 7th, 1874. The physicians "decided to issue a call to the profession in all the contiguous counties to meet with them in Jonesboro on January 15th, 1875 and to join them in the organization of a district society. In response to the call the counties of Alexander, Pulaski, Union, Williamson, Johnson, Jackson, and Perry were represented and this, The Southern Illinois Medical Association, came into existence". S.I.M.A. was organized for the purpose of "stimulating professional thought and action". Among those initially attending were Dr. James I. Hale of Anna, Dr. Horace Wardner of Cairo, Dr. George S. Rainey of Salem, Dr. John McLean of DuQuoin, Dr. Agnew of Makanda, Dr. H.C. Hacker, Dr. G.W. Schurchard, and Dr. W.C. Lence.
Initially meetings were held twice a year. In 1901 this was changed to one annual meeting held in November. The year 1918 was the exception with the meeting being canceled because of both World War I and the severe influenza epidemic. Meetings were two days in length through 1935. Thereafter, one day meetings have been held, usually scheduled for the first Thursday after the first Tuesday in November.
S.I.M.A. grew and physician membership was from the 29 southern-most counties of Illinois until 2009. At that time the Executive Board opened membership to the southern portion of central Illinois as we share similar practice situations. So, now we are representative of the southern-half of Illinois. (See the counties list.)
We are not competitive with The Illinois State Medical Society and in fact try to supplement the I.S.M.S.'s work. We presently do not engage in lobbying. The S.I.M.A. represents a variety of primary care and specialty physicians in rural, suburban, and urban practices.
Southern Illinois Physicians are welcome to attend our Annual Meeting and are invited to join our membership.
In January 1998 the Executive Board of the S.I.M.A. decided to make an Associate Membership status for Physician Assistants, Nurse Midwives, and Nurse Practicioners providing health care in our region.
View some copies of the Monthly Bulletin of the SIMA 1877 and 1878 (130 pages, 12 MB in PDF format) here.