Educating patients through the power of the press: The effect of AMA media briefings

The AMA has informed the public about the latest in health care news and treatments through this long-running series of presentations to the print and electronic media.

Editorial. Sept. 12, 2005.

Next month -- on Oct. 27, to be exact -- the American Medical Association will present another in its long-running series of media briefings to an assemblage of print and electronic journalists in New York City. The theme will be diabetes, and a panel of experts will convey to the media recent developments in the treatment of the disease and provide updates on the progress of research. The reports will appear in the next days and weeks in a variety of media, ranging from television news to newspapers to consumer magazines.

It will be the latest in a series than began in the late 1980s -- there have been nearly 80 such sessions since -- and represents a current iteration of the AMA's long tradition of providing health information to the public. That tradition, sometimes overlooked by the medical community because it is geared more to consumers than to professionals, dates back to the 1920s. It was then that the legendary JAMA editor Morris Fishbein, MD, founded Hygeia, a consumer magazine (later to become Today's Health) providing wellness and fitness information. When that method of communication became too expensive (Today's Health was sold in 1976), the AMA began placing increasing emphasis on using the media to keep the public informed.