AMA Gives All IMG Members Vote Within Section

International medical graduates who belong to the AMA are now voting members of AMA's International Medical Graduates Section and are eligible to apply for a leadership award.

The AMA House of Delegates, holding its interim meeting Nov. 5 - 8 in Dallas, gave final approval to AMA Bylaws amendments (open Report 1; MS Word file: 4 pages / 52 KB. More about downloading files.) to provide that all AMA members who are international medical graduates are members of the IMG Section.

IMG members now can vote electronically -- from home -- for IMG Section Governing Council members, attend section business meetings, vote there for nominees for various offices and run as candidates for the IMG Section Governing Council.

The pool of physicians now in the IMG Section is about 35,000, says FP Bernd Wollschlaeger, M.D., of North Miami Beach, Fla., chair of the IMG Section. "We worked with the AMA Board of Trustees for about two years on the Bylaws amendments, and the board looks at this as a beta test for election procedures. This is direct democracy in action." If the process works, other AMA sections may copy it, he adds.

IMG members of the AMA may apply for an AMA Foundation Leadership Award (open the application materials, MS Word file: 5 pages / 207 KB. More about downloading files.). The award gives members a scholarship to participate in the 2006 AMA National Advocacy Conference March 12-15 in Washington, D.C. The deadline to apply is Dec. 1.

The scholarship is designed to "incubate potential leaders" for the section and then for the AMA councils, says Wollschlaeger. "This is the third year for the scholarship, and we already know it works. Two of our IMG Section Governing Council members were elected after they attended the leadership meeting on a scholarship. Our attitude is that there are no 'born leaders.' We teach people how to lead and be part of a political organization."