AMA apologizes for history of racial inequality and works to include and promote minority physicians

CHICAGO, Ill. - The American Medical Association (AMA) today
apologizes for its past history of racial inequality toward African-
American physicians, and shares its current efforts to increase the
ranks of minority physicians and their participation in the AMA.
In 2005, the AMA convened and supported an independent panel of experts to study the history of the racial divide in organized medicine, and the culmination of this work prompted the apology. Details of the panel's work will be made public on the Web site of the AMA's Institute for Ethics to coincide with publication in the July 16 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).*

"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," said AMA Immediate-Past President Ronald M. Davis, M.D. "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."