AMA's call to get involved: It's time for action

The AMA's 2001 Annual Report contains some good news about the Association's finances and a call for physicians to become more actively involved in the issues confronting medicine today.

Editorial. June 24, 2002.

The AMA's just-released 2001 annual report is part political statement and part financial statement. It is titled "A call for action," and amid the well over a dozen pages of financial information -- much of it quite positive -- are the stories of three physicians and a fourth-year medical student who were willing to pitch in to make a difference for patients and their profession. Their experiences represent the four types of activism essential for medicine today:

• To counteract, by fighting for what's right in the face of injustice. David Lindquist, MD, did that when he played a major role in the Oregon Medical Assn.'s struggle against slow payment by insurers, a practice that made it hard to recruit new physicians to the state.
• To enact, by taking part in the political process. Indiana physician Barney R. Maynard, MD, has testified nine times before the Legislature in the effort to get better health care laws.
• To interact, by getting involved in improving public health and the well-being of others. Ohio medical student Brooke Buckley took part in a wide range of volunteer activities -- from health fairs, to a food bank, to mentoring young people -- as a member of her school's AMA-Medical Student Section chapter. She even donated 15 inches of her hair for wigs provided to children with cancer.