🩺 Medical MCP Server

Bring trusted medical data directly into your AI workflow. A local server for private, free access to FDA, WHO, PubMed, RxNorm, Semantic Scholar, and Google Scholar. No API keys. No data leaks.

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that brings authoritative medical information into AI coding environments like Cursor and Claude Desktop.

Why Use Medical MCP?

• 🔒 Your Data Never Leaves – Runs 100% locally; no tracking, no logs, no cloud

• 🆓 No API Keys – Works out of the box, zero configuration

• 🏥 Authoritative Sources – FDA, TGA, Health Canada, EMA, DailyMed, WHO, PubMed, RxNorm, ClinicalTrials.gov

• ⚡ Easy Setup – One-click install in Cursor or simple manual setup

• 🔬 Comprehensive – Drug info, health stats, medical literature, clinical guidelines, pediatric sources

• 🛡️ Resilient – Circuit breakers, retry with backoff, rate limiting, and automatic fallbacks

• 📊 Evidence-Graded – Results tagged with study type and evidence level (Meta-Analysis → Case Report). Tags are automatic labels from the title and abstract, not independently checked grades.

• 🏥 Health Monitoring – Built-in health check tool to diagnose source availability

Related MCP server: Biomedical APIs MCP Server

What's New in v2.0

• Resilience Layer – Circuit breakers per source, retry with exponential backoff + jitter, per-source token bucket rate limiters

• Monid web search – Scholar, AAP, and PMC HTML go through Monid TinyFish (Tavily-style search/fetch). Semantic Scholar is the no-key fallback

• Evidence Grading – PubMed and multi-database results tagged with study type (Systematic Review, RCT, Cohort, Case Report, etc.) and evidence grade (I–V). These tags are automatic labels from the title and abstract, not independently checked grades.

• Response Validation – Zod schemas validate all upstream API responses, logging warnings on schema drift without breaking

• NCBI API Key Support – Optional NCBI_API_KEY env var boosts PubMed from 3 req/sec to 10 req/sec

• Health Check Tool – health-check pings all upstream sources and reports latency, circuit breaker states, rate limiter status, and cache health

• Structured Logging – Leveled, structured logging (DEBUG/INFO/WARN/ERROR) with source tracking and timing for every API call

• Request Timeouts – All upstream calls have explicit response/deadline timeouts to prevent hanging

Quick Start

Install in Cursor (Recommended):

🔗 Install in Cursor

Or install manually:

npm install -g medical-mcp
# Or from source:
git clone https://github.com/JamesANZ/medical-mcp.git
cd medical-mcp && npm install && npm run build

Features

💊 Drug Information

• search-drugs – Search FDA, DailyMed, TGA (Australia), Health Canada, and EMA. Filter with countries (US, AU, CA, EU). Unsupported codes are rejected rather than returned as empty regulatory results.

• search-drug-nomenclature – Standardized drug names via RxNorm (limit defaults to 25)

• search-drug-safety – FDA FAERS adverse events (with report IDs), recalls, and shortages

📊 Health Statistics

• get-health-statistics – WHO Global Health Observatory data (life expectancy, mortality, disease prevalence)

🔬 Medical Literature

• search-medical-literature – Search 30M+ PubMed articles (with evidence grading). Optional question or rerank reorders those hits so papers that actually answer the question sit above papers that only share keywords.

• rank-search-hits – Same rerank for a list you already have (title + abstract). Retrieval ranking only — not diagnosis or advice.

• get-article-details – Detailed article info by PMID

• search-google-scholar – Academic papers via Monid TinyFish (research_paper) when MONID_API_KEY is set; otherwise Semantic Scholar

• search-medical-journals – Top journals (NEJM, JAMA, Lancet, BMJ, Nature Medicine)

🏥 Clinical Tools

• search-clinical-guidelines – Practice recommendations from medical organizations

• search-clinical-trials – ClinicalTrials.gov

• list-sources – Full catalog of registry adapters and dedicated-tool sources (WHO, PubMed, RxNorm, Scholar, AAP), including which MCP tool reaches each. This is not the search-drugs five-regulator fanout.

👶 Pediatric Sources

• search-pediatric-guidelines – AAP policy/clinical reports via PubMed, plus Bright Futures. Off-domain web hits are dropped; labels come from the page, not from which search ran.

• search-pediatric-literature – Research from major pediatric journals. Optional question / rerank like medical literature.

• search-pediatric-drugs – Drugs with pediatric labeling, NDC, manufacturer, and DailyMed URL

🛡️ Reliability & Monitoring

• health-check – Ping all upstream sources, report latency/status, circuit breaker states, and cache health

• get-cache-stats – View cache statistics (hit rate, memory usage, entry count)

Installation

Cursor (One-Click)

Click the install link above or use:

cursor://anysphere.cursor-deeplink/mcp/install?name=medical-mcp&config=eyJtZWRpY2FsLW1jcCI6eyJjb21tYW5kIjoibnB4IiwiYXJncyI6WyIteSIsIm1lZGljYWwtbWNwIl19fQ==

Manual Installation

Requirements: Node.js 18+ and npm

git clone https://github.com/JamesANZ/medical-mcp.git
cd medical-mcp
npm install
npm run build
npm start

Claude Desktop

Add to claude_desktop_config.json:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "medical-mcp": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["/absolute/path/to/medical-mcp/build/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "NCBI_API_KEY": "your_optional_key_here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Desktop after configuration.

Docker

The container runs the HTTP server. It listens on port 3000 inside the container. -p 3000:3000 publishes that port on your machine. Optional API keys are passed at run time and are not written into the image.

docker build -t medical-mcp:local .
docker run --name medical-mcp --rm -p 3000:3000 medical-mcp:local

If something on the machine is already listening on port 3000, publish a different host port and point the client at that port. The process inside the container still uses 3000.

docker run --name medical-mcp --rm -p 3010:3000 medical-mcp:local

In another terminal:

docker logs medical-mcp
docker stop medical-mcp

docker stop sends SIGTERM. The process stops accepting connections and exits.

Point an MCP client at http://127.0.0.1:3000/mcp. A health URL is not an MCP session. The client has to send initialize and then tools/call.

Pass an optional key from your shell without putting it in the image:

docker run --rm -p 3000:3000 -e NCBI_API_KEY medical-mcp:local

stdio still works when a client owns the container's standard input. Keep stdin open and do not allocate a terminal:

docker run -i --rm medical-mcp:local node build/index.js

-i keeps stdin open for protocol messages. Leave off -t. A TTY is for an interactive terminal and can alter the bytes this protocol uses. Logs stay on stderr so they are not mixed into stdout. The lesson and the Kubernetes steps are in docs/learning-docker-kubernetes.md.

Usage Examples

Search for Drug Information

{
  "tool": "search-drugs",
  "arguments": { "query": "Tylenol", "limit": 5 }
}

Search Medical Literature (with Evidence Grading)

Results now include evidence tags:

1. Efficacy of COVID-19 Treatments: A Meta-Analysis
   Evidence: [Systematic Review / Meta-Analysis • tool grade I]
   Authors: Smith J, Jones K...

2. Randomized Trial of Remdesivir in Adults
   Evidence: [Randomized Controlled Trial • tool grade II]
   Authors: Chen L, Wang M...

Run Health Check

{ "tool": "health-check", "arguments": {} }

Returns:

✅ FDA: healthy (234ms)
✅ PubMed: healthy (156ms)
✅ WHO: healthy (890ms)
✅ RxNorm: healthy (312ms)
✅ ClinicalTrials: healthy (445ms)
✅ SemanticScholar: healthy (189ms)

NCBI API Key: ✅ Configured (10 req/sec PubMed)

Architecture

Resilience Stack

Every API call flows through a three-layer resilience stack:

Request → Rate Limiter → Circuit Breaker → Retry (with backoff) → Upstream API

• Rate Limiter — Per-source token bucket prevents exceeding API limits (PubMed: 3/sec without key, 10/sec with; FDA: 4/sec; Google Scholar: 0.2/sec)

• Circuit Breaker — After 3 consecutive failures, the circuit opens for 60s, preventing cascade failures. Transitions: CLOSED → OPEN → HALF_OPEN → CLOSED

• Retry — Exponential backoff with full jitter on transient failures (429, 5xx, network errors). Max 2 retries

Evidence Grading

PubMed and multi-database results are automatically classified:

These tags are automatic labels from the title and abstract, not independently checked grades.

Automatic Fallback

When MONID_API_KEY is set, Scholar/AAP search and PMC HTML fetch go through Monid TinyFish. Without a key, Scholar falls back to Semantic Scholar's API — free, well-structured, 100 req/sec, no API key needed.

Response Validation

All upstream API responses are validated against Zod schemas. If a source changes their API response format, the server logs a warning but continues operating with raw data — no crashes, just alerts.

Data Sources

Configuration

Environment Variables

Performance & Reliability:

Cache:

Deduplication:

Performance: Cached responses return in <10ms vs 800–1500ms for API calls. Expected hit rate: 60%+ for common queries.

Security & Privacy

• ✅ Localhost-only – Server runs locally, no external access

• ✅ No data storage – All queries are real-time, nothing saved to disk

• ✅ Process isolation – Medical data stays on your machine

• ✅ No API keys required – Works without credentials (NCBI and Monid keys are optional)

Technical Details

Built with: Node.js, TypeScript, MCP SDK Dependencies: @modelcontextprotocol/sdk, superagent, zod, express, cors Platforms: macOS, Windows, Linux

Source layout:

src/
├── index.ts                    # MCP tool definitions
├── utils.ts                    # Core API functions + formatters
├── constants.ts                # API URLs, config constants
├── types.ts                    # TypeScript types
├── logger.ts                   # Structured leveled logging
├── rank/                       # Optional JEV post-retrieval ranker (question vs abstract)
│   ├── policy.ts               # Keep / demote / drop — no HTTP
│   └── jev-client.ts           # TypeSafe System One client (jev-1.13.0)
├── cache/
│   ├── config.ts               # TTL policies, env var support
│   └── manager.ts              # In-memory LRU cache
├── resilience/
│   ├── index.ts                # Composed resilientCall()
│   ├── circuit-breaker.ts      # Per-source circuit breaker
│   ├── retry.ts                # Exponential backoff + jitter
│   └── rate-limiter.ts         # Token bucket rate limiter
├── validation/
│   └── schemas.ts              # Zod schemas for API responses
├── sources/                    # Country/source registry + adapters
│   ├── adapters/               # FDA, TGA, Health Canada, EMA, DailyMed, FAERS, trials, TinyFish
│   └── ...
└── utils/
    ├── deduplication.ts         # Cross-source paper dedup
    ├── evidence-grading.ts      # Study type classification
    └── semantic-scholar.ts      # Semantic Scholar API client

Medical Disclaimer

⚠️ Important: This tool provides information from authoritative sources but should not replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult qualified healthcare professionals for medical decisions.

Contributing

⭐ If this project helps you, please star it on GitHub! ⭐

Contributions welcome! Please open an issue or submit a pull request.

License

MIT License – see LICENSE.md for details.

Support

If you find this project useful, consider supporting it:

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