On February 4th, I wrote on the American Medical Association’s
(AMA) role in modern medicine. Today I will give further
commentary regarding the AMA by reviewing a seminal paper by
Reuben Kessel (1958). The paper describing the AMA’s development
in the first half of the twentieth century. The AMA has two main
goals: 1) a “suitable preliminary education” for all physicians
and 2) “uniform elevated standard of requirements for degree of
M.D. should be adopted by all medical schools in the United
States” (Flexner Report). These goals amounted to the licensure
of physicians and the accreditation of medical schools. The
first goal of physician licensure was achieve gradually over
time at the turn of the nineteenth century. The second goal took
longest to achieve. In 1904, the Council on Medical Education
was founded. The group was dedicated to improving the quality of
medical education. In 1906 the council inspected 160 medical
schools in existence at the time and found that only 82 complied
with their standards.