Power surge: AAFP at AMA
The Academy has eight delegates to the AMA House of Delegates, thanks to about 15,000 AAFP members who have told the AMA, "AAFP is my voice, my choice!"
For the last two years, the AMA has asked its members to name the specialty society that speaks for them -- a way to expand the societies' AMA delegations. Each society within the AMA automatically has one delegate and currently earns another delegate for every 2,000 votes it receives.
Last fall, the AMA decided its members needed to vote only once, unless they wished to change their votes. So votes cast in 1996 didn't need to be repeated. AAFP's total of 14,874 reflects 5,356 votes in 1996 plus 9,518 new votes in 1997, according to the latest information from the AMA. So the AAFP has earned seven delegates via the vote and has a total of eight delegates.
Other societies earned fewer delegates by the vote. Out of 94 specialty societies within AMA, only 18 had more than 2,000 votes; they have earned a total of 34 delegates by the vote.
The graph above shows the medical societies with the most AMA delegates -- AAFP, American College of Radiology and American Society of Anesthesiologists -- and a few other societies -- American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American College of Physicians, American College of Emergency Physicians and American Society of Internal Medicine.
"The response of AAFP members was far higher than the response of members of other specialty societies," said Robert Graham, M.D., AAFP executive vice president. "We're delighted with these results."
By the turn of the century, the AMA will allow a new delegate per 1,000 votes instead of the current 2,000 votes.
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department. Copyright © 1998 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
