Karl F. Mech

Karl F. Mech was born in Baltimore and attended Baltimore schools, graduating from City College in 1928. He attended the University of Maryland and graduated from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 1935. He did his internship and residency at St. Agnes Hospital. 

During WWII, Dr. Mech was stationed at Haloran General Hospital on Staten Island, NY, where he became involved in the first clinical research on penicillin. After four years in the service, he was discharged at a lieutenant colonel in 1946.

When he returned to Baltimore, he became the senior attending surgeon at St. Agnes Hospital, and then Chairman of the Department of Surgery from 1963 to 1969.

Dr. Mech also resumed teaching anatomy at University of Maryland School of Medicine, where he had first begun teaching in 1939, and continued until the year before his death.

In 1955, Dr. Mech became a board member of Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Maryland and was the company’s medical director from 1958 to 1980. He was a diplomat of the American Board of Surgeons and the Maryland State Board of Medical Examiners. He served on the Commission of  Medical Discipline from its inception in 1969 to 1985 when he became its Executive Secretary, a position he held until his death.

Dr. Mech became the president of the Medical & Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland, where he had served as its treasurer and vice president.

Karl F. Mech died after a long illness on May 10, 1987.