"To understand the Geneva Medical Society (SMGe), one must go back to the early nineteenth century," recalls Gérald d'Andiran. Geneva was already shining on the European scientific stage: the annotated edition of Isaac Newton's Philosophia Naturalis by Geneva scientist Jean-Louis Calandrini had been circulating across the continent for several decades. The Société des arts, the Société des naturalistes, and a dense network of scholarly correspondence connected Calvin's city to the great minds of the era. "It is within this ferment that the SMGe was born, in 1823, on the initiative of Jean-François Coindet, a learned physician and successor to Louis Odier as editor of the Bibliothèque universelle. Following a dispute with another Geneva medical society, he walked out and founded, together with his son and four colleagues, a new society."

From the training of physicians to the presentation of scientific advances

Before 1876, Geneva had no faculty of medicine. Medical candidates had to train abroad, and the SMGe's statutes provided that upon their return, they would lead a seminar on what they had learned. "This enabled peer-based training, rooted in exchange and debate", notes Nadia Lahlaidi Sierra. The creation of the Faculty, followed by that of the Cantonal Hospital, profoundly transformed the landscape. Relations between the two institutions came to resemble what Alain Junod, in the book published to mark the SMGe's bicentenary, described as a "chronicle of neighbourly relations at variable distances". The formal establishment of the Faculty of Medicine neither absorbed nor marginalised the SMGe. It occupies a complementary space — one of free reflection, open to all specialties.

The SMGe's history is not, however, free of contradictions, particularly regarding the place accorded to women physicians, even after their admission to academic studies. In 1894, the candidacy of Henriette Saloz-Joudra, the first woman to open a medical practice in Geneva, was put to an extraordinary session. The decision: indefinite adjournment. It would take until 1913 for the SMGe to finally open its doors to women. By contrast, Lina Stern, the first female professor of medicine in Geneva (appointed in 1918), chose to present her pioneering work on the blood-brain barrier at the SMGe — and not at the Faculty. "The SMGe in fact has two faces: sometimes more conservative in its structures, it has nonetheless offered a platform perhaps freer than that of the academic institution", adds Gérald d'Andiran.

A unique space for exchange

Two centuries on, the SMGe occupies a niche found nowhere else in the Geneva medical landscape: a rare freedom of tone and subjects. Membership is exclusive to physicians, but lectures are open to the public. Physicians from the most diverse specialties can exchange ideas outside their usual silos. "At a time when hyper-specialisation is fragmenting medicine into ever-narrower territories, the SMGe takes the opposite bet: that of breaking down barriers", emphasises Caroline Samer.

And while the Geneva Cantonal Medical Association (AMGe) defends professional interests — insurance, fees, health policy — the SMGe operates in a very different context. "It presents itself as a space for breathing and exploration, with no other stake than to offer an opportunity for discussion, sometimes philosophical, sometimes more technical, but never confined", summarises Nadia Lahlaidi Sierra. The two societies are by no means at odds: an AMGe member sits by statute on the SMGe's board, and their joint publication La Lettre, Éclairage SMGe-AMGe, launched in 2020, is testament to this close relationship.

2026: Renew, pass on, sustain

The SMGe operates on a rotating principle: one year, the presidency goes to a professor from the Faculty; the next, to a private-practice physician. In 2026, it is Caroline Samer, professor and Head of Division at the HUG, who presides — and the timing is no coincidence: "I wanted to strengthen the ties with the Faculty of Medicine, and this aligned well with the 150th anniversary." Her programme, resolutely oriented towards the philosophy of science, questions in particular the place of medicine in relation to artificial intelligence and misinformation. A visit to the Museum of the History of Science rounds off the historical dimension.

The main challenge remains renewal. Attracting young physicians, busy launching demanding careers, is no simple task. To raise its profile, even among its youngest colleagues, the Society awards a prize each October for the best community medicine work carried out by young physicians. Moreover, the COVID-19 period, which could have proved fatal to the Society, paradoxically strengthened it: dematerialised lectures viewable remotely broadened the audience, and the entirely redesigned website now archives lectures, a gallery, and annual programmes.

Does the SMGe still embody the ideal of Enlightenment medicine — curious about everything, resistant to compartmentalisation? Gérald d'Andiran nods: "We are very much in the wake of our illustrious forerunners Louis Odier and Jean-François Coindet!" Nadia Lahlaidi Sierra prefers the image of a jewel — precious but robust. And Caroline Samer looks to the future: that of a Faculty and an SMGe that, nourished by a shared history, might walk side by side a little more visibly. "For if the Faculty trains physicians, the SMGe's vocation may be to remind them why they chose this profession."
 

Pre Caroline SAMER
president for 2026

Dre Nadia LAHLAIDI SIERRA
secretary general

Dr Gérald D'ANDIRAN
former president and former secretary general