Dreams for National Health Museum are taking shape

The AMA and other physician groups support the effort to make health care a tourist attraction.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. Oct. 27, 2003.

Washington -- If they build it, tourists will come. They will come to marvel at the wonders of medicine and perhaps leave vowing to get a bit more exercise and eat more vegetables.

That is the hope of the planners of the National Health Museum. There are many museums in Washington, D.C., but none is devoted to health and medicine. (See correction.)

In 1999, the AMA pledged $1 million toward construction of a health museum in the nation's capital, and those funds were recently matched by a $1 million grant from several federal health agencies and a $1 million donation from Houston physician and ph

So far, museum backers have raised about $10 million of the approximately $200 million needed for construction of a facility they hope will be located near one of Washington's premier tourist destinations: the National Air and Space Museum.