The Montreal Medico-Chirurgical Society was founded by a group of general practitioners in 1843 in Montreal. Its first president was McGill Faculty of Medicine founder Dr. Andrew Holmes. They society's founders came together with the intent to establish professional codes of conduct, medical fee rates, and a death registry. Case reports were presented during the society's meetings and published as the Montreal Medical Journal. Educational events arranged with teaching hospitals ran from 1905 to 1960. After World War II, specialty sections were formed by members of the society. By the beginning of the 20th century, the society's activities were expanded to include annual refresher courses in medicine. Over time the focus of the society shifted to scientific, social, and cultural activities and widened the audience to include medical students and the general public for select events. Deans of McGill's Faculty of Medicine who have served as the society's president include Dr. Palmer Howard, Sir Thomas Roddick, F. J. Shepherd, A. D. Blackader, J. G. Adami, and H. S. Birkett.

In 1871 a group of prominent Montréal women founded, on the model of the Ladies' Educational Association of Edinburgh, the Montreal Ladies' Educational Association. Their aim was to provide university level courses, with examinations and certificates, and with the support of McGill Principal J.W. Dawson, they secured Dawson himself and a number of other McGill professors as teachers. The standards of instruction were high, and the success and enthusiasm of the women students was an important moral factor in securing the admission of women to McGill in 1884. As the function of the Association came to be absorbed by McGill, it ceased operations in 1885.

The Montreal High School for Girls began in 1875 as a division of the all-male High School of Montreal. The latter had been founded in 1843 to provide a classical education (with plenty of Latin and Greek) for Protestant English-speaking boys in grades 1 to 12. McGill University controlled the boys' school (known at that time as the High School of McGill College) prior to its transfer to the Protestant Board of School Commissioners in 1870. In the years preceding the transfer, McGill University principal, J. W. Dawson, had advocated for women’s education; his idea was advanced with the opening of the girls section five years after the transfer.
One of the early graduates of the girls’ school, suffragette and physician, Olivia Ritchie, was the first female valedictorian at McGill and the first woman to earn a medical degree in Quebec. Another noteworthy student was the actress Norma Shearer.
In 1965 the boys’ and girls’ schools officially merged, although the two sexes continued to be segregated in separate wings of the neo-classical building at 3449 University Street. In 1979, the school closed its door, owing to the decline in the city’s Anglophone population; the site is now occupied by the mainly French-speaking F.A.C.E. (Fine Arts Core Education) school.

Founded on the Scottish model, the High School of Montreal replaced the Royal Grammar School in 1843, with the Rev. George F. Simpson as its first Rector. The direction of the High School was transferred to McGill in 1853, when it was renamed the High School of McGill College, but in 1870 the School passed under the jurisdiction of the Protestant Board of School Commissioners. The High School for Girls formed a separate division from 1875 to 1965.

The Montreal Graduate Nurses Association originally evolved from the Canadian Nurses Association, which was founded in 1895 with 25 nurses. The organization was incorporated in 1907 with the objectives of "the mutual instruction of Trained Nurses, the establishment of a sick benefit fund, to make the same provision for Nurses in case of sickness or death, and other analogous objects." In 1924, the Canadian Nurses Association changed their name to the Montreal Graduate Nurses Association due to frequent confusion between the local and national-level organizations.