FP Report -- March 1999
AAFP now has nine delegates to the AMA
Thanks to members who have voted for the AAFP as "my voice, my choice" within the AMA, the Academy now has nine AMA delegates, three more than any other national medical society (see chart at right).
Society** Number
of delegatesLargest AMA
specialty society
delegations*AAFP
ACOG
ACP-ASIM
ACR
ASA9
6
5
5
5* Other specialty society delegations have 3 members or fewer.
** Societies other than AAFP: American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal Medicine, American College of Radiologists and American Society of Anesthesiologists.
The Academy won one new delegate through AMA's fall 1998 vote.
Since 1996, every 2,000 votes have gained a society another delegate. This fall, however, the ante goes up. For every 1,000 votes, the society will gain a delegate.
Confused?
To clarify: Societies within the AMA automatically have one delegate. The annual ballot process, begun in 1996, maximizes the clout of societies with high votes. Once members vote, they don't need to vote again. So the final tallies are cumulative.
By now, the Academy has won 16,217 votes, accounting for eight AAFP delegates besides the one each group in AMA has.
If AAFP's cumulative tally remained about the same this fall as in 1998, the Academy would have 17 delegates. In comparison with state medical societies, only six states would have more delegates than the AAFP.
The total number of AMA delegates fluctuates. At its December 1998 interim meeting, the AMA house had 478 delegates, including 68 AAFP members (representing either state medical societies or the AAFP).
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department. Copyright © 1999 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
FP Report | Headlines |AAFP Home | Search