Academy members and staff have donated more than $213,900 to hurricane disaster assistance, including $55,000 to help family physicians recover from hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
The donations are part of the AAFP disaster recovery effort established on the heels of Hurricane Katrina. AAFP's recovery efforts include the Physicians' Disaster Assistance Program AAFP President Larry Fields, M.D., of Ashland, Ky., launched to help family physicians, residents and family medicine departments affected by the hurricanes. Fields announced the fund, his AAFP President's Challenge, during the 2005 AAFP Assembly in San Francisco.
Donors can contribute to a specific state fund, the President's Challenge or to the general physician assistance fund. They also can donate to general hurricane recovery, which will work with the International Medical Corps of Santa Monica, Calif., and St. Charles Community Health Center of Luling, La., to provide medical care to hurricane victims from the four hardest hit parishes in Louisiana. Earlier, the general fund provided $145,000 to the American Red Cross for immediate post-hurricane relief efforts.
Constituent chapters have begun receiving funds from the AAFP effort and will establish uses and allocations of the donations in the next several weeks.
In addition, the AMA has established the Health Recovery Fund to provide grants of up to $2,500 to help physicians rebuild practices that were damaged or destroyed by natural disasters.
Physicians can apply for the AMA grants online (PDF file: 3 pages / 96 KB. More about PDFs.) or by mail through the AMA Foundation, 515 N. State St., 11th Floor, Chicago, IL 60610.
