Dear Charleston County Medical Society Members,

Over the last few years, the leadership of the SCMA has been discussing potential changes and improvements to the process of submitting policy resolutions by the SCMA membership and County Medical Societies. They are also looking at making changes to handling these resolutions at the Reference Committees and the House of Delegates meeting, which takes place each spring at the SCMA Annual meeting. The policy resolutions voted upon and approved at the Annual House of Delegates become the policy guidelines for the SCMA advocacy team's efforts, including our state legislature.

Discussions have focused on enhancing processes to encourage greater participation and engagement by physicians from all over our state. This includes providing a platform for physicians to give their input on SCMA policy and advocacy at other times throughout the year rather than just once a year at the Annual Meeting.

Please take time to learn about these proposed changes, since they involve SCMA Constitution and Bylaws changes:

1. Read the excerpts from Ms. Taylor’s email below
2. Watch the 3 relatively short videos indicated – Dr. Jeff Cashman, SCMA Speaker of the House, provides excellent descriptions of the reasons for these proposed changes, what they hope to accomplish, and the details of these changes. See below a “highlights” screenshot from one of the videos
3. Read the documents showing the proposed changes to the SCMA Bylaws

If you have any questions or comments, please direct them to Tracey Waring at tracey@charlestonmedicalsociety.org, and she will refer them to the appropriate individuals.

We appreciate your participation in this process. Most importantly, we appreciate your membership in CCMS and what you do for your patients and our community as physicians.

All the best,

Cleave

--

F. Cleave Ham, M.D.

SCMA District 14 Board Trustee

CCMS Board of Directors

_______________________________________________________________________

From: Richele Taylor, CEO and CLO, SCMA

Date: Feb. 28, 2024
Subject: Information for county medical societies

First and foremost, District Trustees please provide a copy of the below information or forward this email to your County Society.  Per the Constitution, the amendments to the Constitution must be provided to component medical societies two months before the meeting at which the action is to be taken (April 28^th).  The Bylaw changes must only be provided to the membership, and only 30 days out. Accordingly, we are sharing both the draft change to the Constitution and the Bylaws with all Board members, which includes our District Trustees.   District Trustees you are the conduit to the component medical societies.  Please provide the information in this email to your county officers and/or members, as you see fit.  You are welcome to forward my email if that is helpful.

Second, last year at the Annual Meeting, Dr. Cashman told all the delegates present at the General Meeting that this year we would have changes to the Constitution and Bylaws as required for notice.    The Constitutional change is only changing a term and is very small, and it is possible that we do not enact that change until next year as the Bylaws need to be accepted first. The Bylaws changes are much more extensive.  The reason for the changes is that we are trying to create a healthier and efficient approach to SCMA Policy Making. To explain the changes, Dr. Cashman has put together three videos.

1. Episode 1 - Overview of Current Policy Procedures and Its Challenges (5:27 minutes)
2. Episode 2 - Proposed New Structure to SCMA Policy Making (6:15 minutes)
3. Episode 3 - Benefits of the Proposed Structure (5:25 Minutes)

1. Constitution with redline change (changing the term “House of Delegates” to “Legislative Delegate Committee”)
2. Proposed 2024 Bylaws with redline changes in red.
3. For those of you who do not like Redline, (3) Proposed Bylaws without redline showing and the (4) Original Bylaws to compare.

Thank you for the work on this throughout the year. A special thank you to Dr. Cashman for shepherding this, and Dr. Tarasidis for assisting with review of the written changes. Hopefully these changes will allow us to be more nimble and attract more members to our policy sessions.