AMA Makes Amends For Past Racism

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Jul 10, 2008 5:19PM

The Chicago-based American Medical Association has issued an official apology for "its past history of racial inequality toward African-American physicians." It's the latest apology by the AMA in a move to make amends for their troubling discriminatory past. Former policies prevented many black doctors from working in hospitals unless they were member of local chapters, many of which had their own discriminatory policies. Less than 3 percent of the nation's doctors and med students are black, and as of 2006, less than 2 percent of AMA members are black. In the release on its website, AMA Immediate-Past President Ronald M. Davis, M.D says:

The AMA is proud to support research about the history of the racial divide in organized medicine because by confronting the past we can embrace the future. The AMA is committed to improving its relationship with minority physicians and to increasing the ranks of minority physicians so that the workforce accurately represents the diversity of America’s patients.