Delaware Academy of Medicine

The Delaware Academy of Medicine is a private, nonprofit organization founded in 1930. It's mission is to promote professional and lay health education, maintain a medical library and archives, provide a meeting place for the medical and dental professions and related organizations and to provide financial support for medical and dental students.

Governed by a Board of Directors, the Academy is the premiere resource for health information in Delaware. Academy staff and volunteers work to combine print digital and internet resources with knowledge and insight gained from 77 years of experience in managing medical information. Academy services help save time and effort in finding the health information. The Academy provides a broad range of information and educational services to the public and to medical and dental professionals who are members of the Academy.

The Academy offers a range of services to the general public including: consumer health libraries in all three counties of Delaware, book and literature search services, public health information forums, a range of "members only" services, student financial aid, and various training programs.

The Delaware Academy of Medicine was founded by sixteen doctors and dentists in 1930. These included Julian Adair, MD; Olin S. Allen, MD; Joseph M. Barsky, Sr., MD; W. Edwin Bird, MD; J. Draper Brown, DDS; Lewis B. Flinn, MD; George W.K. Forrest, MD; William H. Kraemer, MD; W. Oscar LaMotte, Sr., MD; Emil R. Mayerberg, MD; John H. Mullin, MD; W. Morris Pierson, MD; James H. Spackman, MD; Albert J. Strikol, MD; Charles E. Wagner, MD; and Victor D. Washburn, MD. Their goal was to provide a professional library and a meeting place where doctors and dentists from all over the state could gather to exchange ideas and experiences, and so improve the quality and delivery of medical care. They also intended the Academy to be a historical repository for the Delaware medical community, documenting and memorializing the lives of its members.

Dr. Flinn served as the Academy’s first president, occupying the office for twelve years. Many years later, in 1984, the Academy's library was renamed in his honor, becoming the Lewis B. Flinn Library.

Since its founding, the Delaware Academy of Medicine has been housed in the former Bank of Delaware building, which was built in 1815 on Sixth and Market Streets in Wilmington. After the bank moved to newer quarters in 1931 and the building was left empty, Mrs. Henry B. Thompson and Mrs. Ernest I. duPont led a drive to raised funds to purchase the building for the newly founded Academy. With their help and support, the building was relocated to the current site on Lovering Avenue, and the Academy took up residence there in 1932. In 1958, an addition was constructed, expanding the auditorium and creating more office space for the various medical groups that had their offices in the building.

In 2006 the Academy moved into the newly constructed John H. Ammon Medical Education Center at the Stanton Campus of the Christiana Care Health System.

Over the years since 1930, the Academy’s purpose has grown broader. It serves the Delaware medical community by offering them a meeting place, and it provides medical library services with an extensive collection of journals, books, and databases and other electronic resources that few other institutions in the state can match. It also sends librarians directly to hospitals and other medical institutions around Delaware through its Circuit Riding Medical Librarian Program. Since 1961, the Academy has also provided financial aid to medical students.

But today, the Delaware Academy of Medicine serves the general public directly as well. It makes its health information resources accessible to everyone in many ways, including professional reference librarian service, the Gail P. Gill Consumer Health Library of popular medical books, and the TEL-MED automated health information service. Through a partnership with the Division of Public Health, it provides consumer health information services at public libraries in Kent and Sussex Counties. It also holds lectures and seminars to educate the public on important health topics.