Australian Medical Association
The Australian Medical Association (AMA) is an Australian public company by guarantee formed as a professional association for Australian doctors and medical students. The association is not run by the Australian Government and does not regulate or certify doctors, a responsibility which lies with the Medical Board of Australia[1] and the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency.[2] The association's national headquarters are located in Barton, Australian Capital Territory, in addition to the offices of its branches in each of the states and territories in Australia.
Company type
1962
Professor Steve Robson (president)
Dr Danielle McMullen (vice president)
AU$21.9 million (2020)
~30,000 (2021)
Australian Medical Association Limited
The organisation aims to lead health policy debate. It is based on a structure of state branches and committees. The AMA supports patient care and uses a variety of mechanisms that promote and protect the interests of doctors in Australia. It has around 30,000 members forming the largest voluntary association of doctors in Australia. The AMA has traditionally been a conservative (rather than progressive) body. The AMA officially endorses trials to use pill testing.
The AMA offers an Indigenous Medical Scholarship. It has formed an Equity, Inclusion and Diversity Committee. The current president is Steve Robson. The BMA Branches of the Australian states and territories formally merged into the Australian Medical Association in 1962.
Aims and objectives[edit]
The AMA has a range of representative and scientific committees. One of its stated aims is "leading the health policy debate by developing and promoting alternative policies to those government policies that the AMA considers poorly targeted or ill-informed; responding to issues in the health debate through the provision of a wide range of expert resources; and commissioning and conducting research on health issues.".[3]
The AMA uses a representative structure involving state branches and committees to work with members to promote and protect the interests of doctors in Australia.
The mechanisms that allow this include:
The AMA supports patient care by serving the medical profession across a broad range of services, including:
Membership and demographics[edit]
The AMA with slightly fewer than 30,000 members is the largest voluntary association of doctors in Australia. When compared to Royal Colleges in membership, it is the second largest association of Australian doctors, behind the RACGP, but slightly bigger than the RACP. However, the AMA does not have the regulatory role that the Colleges have as part of the Ahpra and Australian Medical Council system.
The AMA represents slightly fewer than 30% of all Australian doctors, down from previous levels of 95% in 1962 and 50% in 1987.[4][5][6] The rate of membership amongst Australian GPs is lower than for other doctors, with approximately 6,000 out of 45,000 GPs being AMA members. Engagement of GPs by the AMA is lower than for the RACGP and ACRRM.[7] In 2020, the incoming AMA President Omar Khorshid claimed in an interview that the AMA could still advocate on behalf of all doctors, even though only 30% of doctors supported the AMA through membership.[8]
There are 15 officially recognised specialty medical Colleges in Australia. The AMA offers only the 11 largest out of the 15 representation on AMA Federal Council[9] with the smaller Colleges currently ineligible for representation. The official Australian medical colleges that do not have representation within the AMA are Australasian College of Sport and Exercise Physicians, Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine, College of Intensive Care Medicine and the Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators.
The AMA offers an Indigenous Medical Scholarship.[10] It has called upon the Federal government to spend more on Indigenous Health in a number of areas.[11][12] However, the AMA lobbied against equitable time-tiered Medicare consultation rebates for different specialists,[13] which was proposed by the MBS Review Taskforce.[14] Inability to access equitable time-tiered MBS rebates for Sport & Exercise Medicine specialists under Medicare is an important issue for Indigenous Australians.[15][16] In 2020, the AMA President Tony Bartone criticised attendees at the Black Lives Matter rallies in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic for attending a large gathering,[17] although AMA (WA) President Andrew Miller was supportive.[18]
The AMA formed an Equity, Inclusion and Diversity Committee (EIDC)[19] in 2016,[20] which produced an anti-racism statement in 2018 . The AMA held a Gender Equity Summit in 2019[21] and set targets to improve female representation on AMA Boards and Committees, aiming for >=40%. The AMA has only had two female Presidents in its history. In early 2020, less than 20% of members on AMA Federal Council were female. After elections in mid-2020, this had increased to 27% of members on Federal council being female. In 2017, 42% of doctors were female in Australia.[22]