Nearly 700 physicians, residents and medical students are gathering—virtually—over six days for the June 2021 AMA Special Meeting to consider proposals across a wide range of clinical practice, payment, medical education and public health topics.
The AMA House of Delegates (HOD) will work in a democratic process to create a national physician consensus on emerging issues in public health, science, ethics, business and government to improve the care and public heath of patients and communities. The policies adopted at this meeting will give the AMA direction and act as a driving force on the future of American medicine. The meeting, held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, will run June 11-16.
The delegates also will have the opportunity to engage with educational offerings covering issues such as physician burnout, machine learning in medicine, and medical student-loan debt.
Policy discussion
Among the notable issues that will be addressed at the June 2021 AMA Special Meeting are these 10:
- Restricting chemical restraints in agitated individuals outside a hospital setting.
- Changing medicine to prevent and address racism, discrimination and bias.
- Enhancing medical education pathways to increase diversity in medicine.
- Addressing equity in telehealth.
- Opposing the criminalization and restriction of evidence-based gender-affirming care.
- Revising the definition of “harm” used by federal privacy regulators to prevent unintended consequences.
- Supporting strong privacy and equity protections under vaccine mandates and vaccine credentials.
- Ensuring adequate health care resources to address the long-COVID crisis.
- Promoting international sharing of COVID-19 resources.
- Addressing increases in youth suicide.
Special sessions
Physicians and medical students attending the June 2021 AMA Section Meetings also had the opportunity to learn from experts on a variety of subjects.
These included:
“Transforming health care for a post-pandemic world.” Shantanu Nundy, MD, author of Care After COVID: What the Pandemic Revealed Is Broken in Healthcare and How to Reinvent It, and a panel of AMA experts explored what health care advocacy, equity, innovation and outcomes will look like after COVID-19. Read more about the five ways health care must change for a post-pandemic world.
“Private practice: Where we stand today, how we lead into tomorrow.” Delegates learned about the most up-to-date AMA research on private practice and gained insights about what is behind the numbers with Carol Kane, PhD, director, AMA economic and health policy research.
Also, Michael Tutty, PhD, group vice president of professional satisfaction and practice sustainability, and Kathleen Blake, MD, vice president of health care quality, discussed preliminary results from the AMA’s survey on high-performing practices and shared tips for success in private practice.
Learn more with the AMA’s private practice sustainability resources, and check out the new AMA Private Practice Physicians Section.
Anyone can view the meeting’s prerecorded education sessions, which include:
- “Burnout, barriers and resilience.”
- “Machine learning.”
- “Medical school debt: Options to help medical students with crushing debt.”
- “Post COVID medical legislation.”
- “Tribal sovereignty in health care.”
- “Why housing matters in health.”
Follow the meeting
Highlights of the meeting’s key moments and House of Delegates policy actions will be posted daily at the AMA website, the June 2021 AMA Special Meeting website, and the AMA’s Facebook page, Instagram and Twitter account using #AMAmtg.
Addresses from leadership and more will be featured on the AMA’s YouTube channel. After the meeting, be sure to follow the AMA on LinkedIn for additional updates as well.
