Report on the American Medical Association Meeting

Abstract

The American Medical Association (AMA) faced an identity crisis at its interim meeting in Dallas. What is the value of its name? What does the name American Medical Association mean? What is the AMA? Is it a moneymaking entity that lobbies for doctors? Or is it a professional association that upholds the ethical standards that are expected of its members? A contract to endorse Sunbeam products brought the issues to a head. In August, AMA top officials announced the so-called “cobranding” or endorsement contract that would have put the AMA name and logo on consumer medical products. There was no plan to test the products, and it also violated an unwritten 40-year-old rule against product endorsements by the group. The AMA Board of Trustees hastily canceled the contract in September. In the resulting furor, four top officials of the organization resigned. A week before the AMA interim meeting in Dallas, the AMA’s top paid executive, P. John Seward, MD, also resigned after the New Jersey delegation to the meeting introduced a resolution calling for his ouster as well as that of AMA chairman Thomas Reardon, MD. The AMA committee that heard the complaints of members about the contract during the meeting convened beyond its planned adjournment time as physician after physician lambasted the AMA …