Founding of the American Medical Association

"Founding of the American Medical Association" by artist Robert A. Thom, 1961, was part of a series commissioned by Parke-Davis on the "History of Medicine".

Scientific advancement, standards for medical education, launching a program of medical ethics, improved public health — these were the goals of the American Medical Association (AMA). Two hundred fifty delegates from twenty-eight states attended the founding meeting and were seated among exhibit cases and before ancient bones of a mastodon, "Mammut Amercanum", in the hall of The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

This painting by artist Robert A. Thom captures the moment on the evening of May 7, 1847, when the delegates to the national medical convention had just approved a resolution to establish the AMA and had elected Dr. Nathaniel Chapman as its first president.

Convention Chairman Jonathan Knight welcomed Dr. Nathaniel Chapman, first AMA president (right foreground). Pictured between Jonathan Knight and Dr. Nathaniel Chapman where their hands meet is young Dr. Nathan S. Davis. Dr. Davis has been named the founder of the AMA because it was his 1845 resolution to the New York Medical Association calling for a national medical convention that led to the forming of the AMA. Dr. Davis was only 30 years old when the AMA was founded and he devoted the next five decades of his life to the service of the medical profession and the AMA. Dr. Davis became president of the AMA in 1864 and was the first editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association from 1883 to 1888.

At the founding meeting the delegates adopted the first code of medical ethics, and adopted the first national standards for preliminary medical education and for the degree of MD.

Those attending the founding meeting of the AMA launched what has become the largest medical association in America whose work for over a century and a half has remained focused on the founding principles. The AMA represents the best of American medicine and today continues to serve as an advocate for the profession, physician and patient.