The AMA’s Historic Health Fraud and Alternative Medicine Collection includes images of quack devices from the early 20th century that generated oversight we now take for granted.
AMA J Ethics. 2021;23(9):E721-738. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2021.721.
The AMA’s Council on Rural Health (1945-1975) collaborated with domestic health care organizations in the mid-20th century to improve access to health care in rural areas.
AMA J Ethics. 2020;22(3):E248-252. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2020.248.
The causes of many health behaviors are deeply rooted in our culture, and using a counseling model that assumes individual control and responsibility for these behaviors can cause patients to feel hectored instead of helped.
“Difficult” patient-physician encounters have roots in uncertainty about individuals’ trustworthiness, clinicians’ skills and training, and medical science.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(4):391-398. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.4.mhst1-1704.
Invention of the stethoscope in 1816 changed the patient-physician relationship. Technology, widely used in medicine today, is not a substitute for the physician’s human understanding of the patient’s life.