JAMA history

Established in 1895, the NMA is the collective voice of more than 30,000 African American physicians and the patients they serve.

The association adopted a new structure in 1901.

In 1902 the AMA adopted official permanent headquarters in Chicago.

1905: AMA establishes a council to set standards for drug manufacturing and advertising

1906: AMA publishes first American Medical Directory listing over 128,000 licensed physicians in the United States and Canada.

The first issue of the Journal of the National Medical Association was published in 1909 and edited by Doctor Charles V. Roman.

1910: The Flexner Report, Medical Education in the United States and Canada, funded by the Carnegie Foundation and supported by the AMA, is published and facilitates new standards for medical schools

Conditions in the North were also inequitable. It is reported that as late as 1912, only 19 of New York City’s 29 hospitals would admit black patients, and only three gave black physicians the right to tend to their patients or perform operations.

The AMA registered its opinion on compulsory health insurance in 1920, when its House of Delegates passed a resolution condemning any national health insurance policy.

1923: AMA promotes periodic examination of healthy persons

1927: AMA Council on Medical Education and Hospitals publishes first list of hospitals approved for residency training.

The AMA had formed a Bureau of Medical Economics in 1931, which spoke out against any insurance plans that might change the way doctors were compensated.

For instance the AMA approved the administration's plan to have the government pay for medical care for federal employees under the Civil Works Administration, enacted in 1933.

1935: AMA successfully inhibits passage of national health insurance as part of Social Security Act.

In 1936 the AMA began offering its Seal of Acceptance to food manufacturers who passed standards of safety and hygiene and who did not advertise unproved benefits of their products.

In 1938 the AMA published a book called The Normal Diet.

The AMA continued to fight government involvement in health care with a campaign against President Truman's initiatives in 1948.

1949: AMA begins charging membership dues.

1950: AMA Education and Research Foundation established to help medical schools meet expenses and to help medical students.

In 1951, several white medical colleges in the South and in border states gradually began admitting black students, and within ten years enrollment nearly doubled.

Doctors “display a consistent preoccupation with their economic insecurity,” a 1955 report by the AMA concluded with discomfiting bluntness.

In 1957, the NMA joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the National Urban League, and the Medico-Chirurgical Society of the District of Columbia (an NMA affiliate) to sponsor the first Imhotep National Conference on Hospital Integration.

In 1961 the American Medical Political Action Committee (AMPAC) was formed to represent physicians' and patients' interests in health care legislation.

The 1965 Civil Rights Acts that eventually outlawed discrimination in government-funded health programs, represented the hope that African Americans would enjoy an improved health status.

1966: AMA publishes first edition of the Current Procedural Terminology (CPT), a system of standardized terms for medical procedures used to facilitate documentation.

1967: The United States Adopted Names (USAN) Council is established to determine nonproprietary designations for chemical compounds.

Mostly as a result of this, the AMA lost 11,671 members in 1971.

1972: AMA launches war on smoking, urging the government to reduce and control the use of tobacco products and supporting legislation prohibiting the disbursement of tobacco samples.

1973: AMA urges physicians to cooperate in a national program to combat hypertension.

By 1974, the AMA was at the point of having to borrow money to meet its payroll.

Project HOPE has published Health Affairs since 1981.

1986: AMA passes resolution opposing acts of discrimination against AIDS patients and any legislation that would lead to such categorical discrimination or that would affect patient-physician confidentiality.

1990: AMA Fellowship Residency Electronic Interactive Data Access System (FREIDA) describing residency programs in the United States is available in electronic form.

A 1993 poll by the AMA, at a time when the Clinton administration reform proposals seemed on the verge of becoming law, found that an all-time high of 70 percent of the public was beginning to lose faith in their doctors.

1996: AMA launches a crusade against health plan "gag clauses," resulting in these restrictive provisions being dropped by 5 leading managed care providers and laws prohibiting gag clauses in 16 states.

In 1997, the AMA suffered a scandal when it revealed an arrangement it had signed with the Sunbeam Corporation, a small-appliance manufacturer, to give the firm's goods an AMA seal of approval in exchange for royalties.

The group also lost money in 1999, ending the year with a loss of $5.4 million.

At a meeting in June 2000, the AMA revealed a new plan, to let doctors pay a one-time fee to join for life.

2005: AMA spearheads effort with 129 other health care and patient groups, which results in the passage and signing of the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act.

2008: Ronald M. Davis, MD, then the AMA's immediate past president, apologizes for more than a century of AMA policies that excluded African-Americans from the AMA and that also barred them from some state and local medical societies.

The AMA is closely monitoring COVID-19 (2019 novel coronavirus) developments.