Mission Statement
The Association for Medical Ethics (AME) consists of physicians from every specialty of medicine. The purpose of the Association is to promote patient care and good, evidence-based medicine.
The physicians of AME have joined together to provide increased public awareness on important issues. Such issues include the ethics of responsible patient care, and identification of the often-pervasive influence of the industry on many health care providers and their patients. Throughout our work, we maintain a focus on using evidence-based care criteria, which leads to tangible results. The AME Board of Directors and the AME members receive no remuneration for their efforts.
The need for our concern has been reflected by the clear erosion in the integrity of medicine over the past few decades.
AME strongly promotes the belief that physicians and medical organizations need to work together to develop new drugs, devices and treatments as long as these relationships are transparent and legitimate. AME requires its members to disclose any such relationships. Patients have a right to know if their doctor is a paid consultant or distributor for device manufacturers or pharmaceutical companies. By inspecting additional factors, we help patients discover if a particular medical practice is not in their best interest.
AME consists of board certified physicians, licensed health care practitioners, and resident physicians in training, all of whom sign affidavits that they believe physicians have a right to invent and collect royalties of any amount. However, the royalties should be for a patent that has been genuinely invented and has not been “assigned” by industry. AME also believes the physician has a right to collect consulting fees in any amount. However, those payments must be disclosed to the patient and must be for actual and legitimate services provided. AME physicians do not accept gifts from medical manufacturers and do not own any portion of a medical distributorship for any products used in their medical practice or training.
AME History
In 2005, stemming from concerns regarding excessive and unnecessary spinal surgery being performed in the United States, a group of orthopedic spine surgeons led the formation of a national, non-profit spine surgeon group created as the Association for Ethics in Spine Surgery.
Learn About the History of AME