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Panel to help AMA leaders work together more efficiently

A new House of Delegates committee is charged with putting the Association's governance house in order once and for all.

By Bonnie Booth, amednews staff. Dec. 24/31, 2001.

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San Francisco -- After nearly 10 hours of closed-door debate at the Association's Interim Meeting, the House of Delegates approved a series of recommendations designed to deal with organizational issues that have plagued the AMA for several years.

Most prominent in the recommendations: A new ongoing committee that will examine the responsibilities and relationships among the AMA executive vice president, general counsel and Board of Trustees. The committee is also expected to review past governance reports and communicate regularly to the House of Delegates. Committee members are to be selected by the end of the year and will make their first report at the June 2002 Annual Meeting.

In the wake of the Sunbeam controversy -- in which the AMA entered into and then backed out of an agreement to provide a "seal of approval" for certain home health products -- numerous committees have studied and made recommendations on governance roles and responsibilities for various leadership positions within the Association.

It will be this latest committee's responsibility to sift through those recommendations and determine if they have been implemented properly.

The house action was based on a report presented to delegates from a select committee established last June to look into the circumstances surrounding the filing of a lawsuit against the AMA by then Executive Vice President E. Ratcliffe Anderson Jr., MD. In the suit, Dr. Anderson alleges the Association breached his contract by stripping him of the power to hire or fire the AMA's general counsel. [...]