Academic Physicians' Participation in Organized Medicine

Abstract

To study the relationship of state medical societies to their medical schools, two cross-sectional surveys were conducted. The first was a survey of the medical society executive directors of the 46 states and US sovereign territories that have medical schools within their borders. Directors were asked to compare academic and community physician participation (membership and member involvement) in the medical society and describe the characteristics of the medical society's medical school unit (eg, how formalized it is and its design, composition, and level of interaction). The unit's characteristics were compared with the amount of academic physician participation. Data about physician membership in state medical societies and the American Medical Association (AMA) were obtained from the AMA Physician Masterfile. Significantly fewer academic physicians than community physicians were members of the state medical society or the AMA (38.1% vs 52.0%,P The second survey was carried out at the four academic medical centers in Florida. All academic physicians were surveyed about their attitudes toward organized medicine. Academic physicians reported that the annual dues were not reasonable relative to the benefit derived, but other data in this study suggested that reducing dues would not necessarily increase membership. Academic physicians also reported that their administration did not reward their participation in organized medicine and thought participation was less relevant to academic physicians than community physicians, but admitted a knowledge deficit regarding organized medicine. These findings suggest that reducing dues may not be sufficient to increase academic physician participation in organized medicine, but that changing the reward system within the medical school and increasing academic physicians' awareness of organized medicine's value to them may be ways to influence participation. (JAMA. 1995;274:1727-1732)