The MICCAI Society was incorporated in 2004. The MICCAI conference series started in 1998 with the merger of CVRMed (Computer Vision, Virtual Reality and Robotics in Medicine), MRCAS (Medical Robotics and Computer Assisted Surgery) and VBC (Visualization in Biomedical Computing). The first MICCAI conference was held in Boston, Massachusetts, USA in 1998.

The founding members of MICCAI were:

• Nicholas Ayache, INRIA, France
• Alan Colchester, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
• Takeyoshi Dohi, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
• James Duncan, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
• Karl Heinz Hoehne, University of Hamburg, Germany
• Ron Kikinis, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
• Stephen Pizer, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
• Rich Robb, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, Minnesota, USA
• Russell Taylor, John Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
• Jocelyne Troccaz, University of Grenoble, France
• Max Viergever, University Medical Utrecht, Netherlands