Doctors' Group Issues Apology for Racism

"I applaud the AMA for doing this. In the current climate of health care, it is a very timely gesture," he said. "Less than five percent of physicians are African Americans, and that needs to be changed. This cannot be changed by African American physicians alone, and we all need to move forward together."

Otis W. Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, welcomed the apology. He is a member of the National Medical Association, a predominantly black group that was established in 1895 in response to the AMA policy that allowed the exclusion of black doctors.

"Any sort of acknowledgment that blacks were excluded is a positive step," Brawley said. "But I'm much more interested in the future than in the past. I would like to see a focus on getting quality care for all people."

The AMA was founded in 1847 by Nathan S. Davis, a doctor from New York. Today, it has almost 250,000 members and supports education and research programs, but in recent years has been losing membership.

Today's apology is the latest expression of regret by government entities and businesses in recent years.

In the past, states including Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, Virginia and Florida and businesses such as Wachovia have expressed regret for their role in slavery. Last year, the governing board of the University of Virginia became the first to pass a resolution over the "regret for its use of enslaved persons from 1819 to 1865."

In 2005, the Republican Party said it was sorry for its racially tinged "southern strategy," which it adopted during Richard M. Nixon's 1968 campaign.

President Bill Clinton in 1997 expressed regret for the experiment in which U.S. government researchers used black men to study syphilis in Tuskegee, Ala., starting in 1932. Instead of treating almost 400 men who had been infected by syphilis, the researchers gave the men placebos and then observed the progression of the disease. The study continued until 1972 and ended when its existence was leaked to the media. Clinton called the study "deeply, profoundly, morally wrong."

The apologies issued by institutions are often carefully worded to ensure that they do not become liable for financial reparations.

According to the AMA's online chronology, the association has also been slow to respond to the issue of discrimination against black doctors.

In 1939, the organization stated that it "emphatically deprecated discrimination." At the same time, the AMA recognized county societies' "right of self-governance in local matters, including membership."

In 1954, the AMA refused to allow the Old North State Medical Society, which represented black physicians in North Carolina, to be admitted to the association, just as the North Carolina Medical Society had refused to lift its racial barriers.

Today, the philanthropic arm of the AMA provides scholarships to support minority medical students and has created the Minority Affairs Consortium to promote the training of minority doctors. Eleven students were awarded funding through the AMA Foundation Minority Scholars Award this year.

The AMA helped develop the Doctors Back to School program, which is designed to encourage students to train for careers in medicine.