The AMA Minority Affairs Section (MAS) held its business meeting on Friday evening, June 10. The keynote speaker, Ronald Wyatt, MD, MHA, the patient safety officer for The Joint Commission, discussed health disparities, health equity, and physicians’ unconscious bias. The meeting also featured an open forum on AMA House of Delegates reports and resolutions that impact minority physicians and patients.
The business meeting also included an awards presentation honoring 21 medical students who received the 2016 Minority Scholars Awards. Award recipients won $10,000 scholarships from the AMA Foundation. The scholarships were made possible with support from Pfizer Humanities Initiative and the American Society of Anesthesiologists. One $5,000 scholarship was made possible by Richard Allen Williams, MD, Ms. Genita Johnson and the Association of Black Cardiologists (ABC). These scholarships recognize scholastic achievement, financial need and personal commitment to improving health care disparities among students in groups defined as historically underrepresented in the medical profession.
On Monday morning, June 13, MAS hosted a continuing medical education (CME) session titled, “Medicine, Social Determinants of Health, and Criminal Justice Reform.” MAS also co-sponsored a CME session with the LGBT Advisory Committee, “Adding HIV PrEP to Your Practice.”
The MAS governing council elected Frank Clark, MD, as the section chair, and Tyeese Gaines, DO, as vice chair for one-year terms, which will begin at the conclusion of the 2016 AMA Annual Meeting.
