American Medical Association & United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Educational Outreach Collaborative
Nazi Germany has been described as a “biocracy,” a national culture that justified the killing of millions of “undesirable” individuals through appeals to pseudo-science and eugenics. Within this framework, healers became killers, and medical research evolved into torture. An important impetus for medical ethics in the 20th century was international reactions against these Nazi War crimes of a medical nature. Atrocious medical crimes during the Holocaust led to the Nuremburg code and later, the Declarations of Helsinki, Tokyo, Hamburg and many other national and international ethics documents. While the role of medicine in the Holocaust profoundly affected our professional codes, codes are living documents that require ongoing reflection on lessons learned, and future directions and precautions.
In April of 2004, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) hosted the American Medical Association (AMA) Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs to a preview of their exhibit documenting Nazi War crimes of a medical nature called "Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race”. As a follow up, the USHMM Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies (CAHS) University Programs Division and the Institute for Ethics at the AMA initiated a lecture series based on the exhibition. Each visit in the series was anchored by a lecture or Grand Rounds at a medical school, followed by a community event, usually at a local Holocaust Museum or the University.
AMA-USHMM Series closes with
Holocaust Remembrance Programs in Israel
Over 18 months the AMA-US Holocaust Memorial Museum Educational Collaborative reached over 6000 medical students and community members around the United States. The lecture series also provided hundreds of free CME credits to US doctors. As the first of its kind collaboration between a professional association and a national museum, the series attracted international attention. In April of 2007, during Holocaust Memorial Week, the series closed in Tel Aviv Israel with joint programs sponsored by the Israel Medical Association, the AMA and the US Holocaust Memorial Musuem. Like the US programs, the programs in Israel featured Dr. Patricia Heberer, an Historian with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. In addition, the programs in Israel featured Dr. J. Edward Hill, AMA's Immediate Past President, and Dr. Matthew Wynia, the Director of the AMA Institute for Ethics, which sponsored and developed the educational collaborative. These AMA leaders explored the importance of Holocaust rememberance to the medical profession, especially as the number of survivors declines, and described how this program broke important new ground for medical education and medical ethics.
Content provided by: Institute for Ethics