Premeds and the AMSA Mission Statement

So I was thinking that the first real post should be nothing but good news, so here it is:

If you haven't heard, AMSA's Board of Trustees passed a motion that adds premedical students to our mission statement. (It's kind of wierd that we weren't already on there, right?) At any rate, my motion passed unanimously, so the mission statement now reads:

The American Medical Student Association is committed to improving health care and healthcare delivery to all people; promoting active improvement in medical education; involving its members in the social, moral and ethical obligations of the profession of medicine; assisting in the improvement and understanding of world health problems; contributing to the welfare of medical students, premedical students, interns, residents and post-MD/DO trainees; and advancing the profession of medicine.

Many thanks to the Board for their continued support of premeds.

Now that that is done, I am trolling through the Constitution and Bylaws: Internal Affairs, Preamble, Purposes, and Principles (PPP for short) looking for out of date language that needs to be updated to be inclusive of premedical students. FUN!!

Welcome to the Culture of (Pre)Medicine

Greetings, all.

For those of you who don't know me, my name is Ken Williams. I am your premedical represetative on the culture of medicine action committee.

To begin, I would like to introduce you to the newly-formed culture of medicine committee. below, you will find the vision and mission statements of our committee and some of the projects on which we are working:

• Vision: We envision a health care system that fosters a culture of wellness and respect and promotes the integrity of the medical profession.


• Mission statement: The culture of medicine action committee is committed to using education, policy, and grassroots organizing in its work on the following:


• Patient-physician relationship/patient-centered care


• Professionalism/ethics in medicine


• Medical errors/patient safety


• Conflicts of interest


• End-life care


• Removing the culture of entitlement that exists in medicine and replacing it with a culture of giving and selflessness


• Political empowerment/engagement of physicians-in-training


• Mental health parity


• Health as a human right


• Educating and empowering physicians-in-training to assume a role in political advocacy


• Empowering premedical students within medicine writ large and amsa writ small


• Projects


• Professionalism and Bioethics Leadership Institute


• PharmFree


• PharmFree Week


• PharmFree Toolkit


• Premedical PharmFree Toolkit


• No Academic Medical Center Left Behind


• PharmFree Leadership Institute


• AMSA Scorecard


• Physician Payment Sunshine Act legislative work


• PharmFree Pledge


• Premedical PharmFree Pledge


• Underground Orientation


• 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Activities


• Medical textbook and equipment donations

You can write me at any time at amsaken@gmail.com with any questions, comments, or concerns, or to find out more about any of our projects!

Thanks!!