"[7] The organization was founded with the goal to raise the standards of medicine in the 19th century primarily through gaining control of education and licensing.

[8][9] In the 20th century, the AMA has frequently lobbied to restrict the supply of physicians, contributing to a doctor shortage in the United States.

The American Medical Association is governed by a House of Delegates[15] as well as a board of trustees in addition to executive management.

[24] In 1848, the AMA began publishing Transactions of the American Medical Association, which included lists and reports of cases of physiological effects of ether and chloroform at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, the New York Hospital and the clinics of the University of Pennsylvania and Jefferson Medical College.

[34][full citation needed] In 1901, the AMA was reorganized with its central authority shifted to a House of Delegates, a board of trustees, and executive offices.

[50] The commission, established for evaluation and accreditation of healthcare organizations in the United States, governed by a board of commissioners including physicians, consumers and administrators.

[54] In 1975, the AMA adopted a policy stating that "discrimination based on sexual orientation is improper and unacceptable by any part of the federation of medicine.

[59] A Federal district judge ruled that the AMA had violated the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1987 by depriving chiropractors of access to the Association.

[60] The Journal of the American Medical Association first documented that Joe Camel cartoons reached more children than adults in December 1991.

The Association called for the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company to stop using the Joe Camel character in its advertising because of its appeal to youth.

[65] In 2002, the AMA released a report that found a medical liability insurance crisis in at least a dozen states was forcing physicians to either close practices or limit services.

In the early 20th century, the AMA lobbied lawmakers to shut down medical schools on grounds that they were substandard, which in turn reduced the supply of doctors.

[8] In the 1930s, the AMA attempted to prohibit its members from working for the health maintenance organizations established during the Great Depression, which violated the Sherman Antitrust Act and resulted in a conviction ultimately affirmed by the US Supreme Court.

[76] In 1982, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld a Federal Trade Commission order that allowed doctors and dentists to advertise without professional association interference.

[80] In 2007, the AMA called for state and federal agencies to investigate potential conflicts of interest between the retail clinics and pharmacy chains.

[82] A 1932 editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Society denounced a proposal for government-backed voluntary health insurance system.

[8] In 1961, the AMA opposed the King-Anderson bill proposing Medicare legislation and took out advertisements in newspapers, radio and television against government health insurance.

[96] The main legislative emphasis in multiple states has been to effect caps on the amount that patients can receive for pain and suffering.

[98] During a February 2021 JAMA podcast, a Deputy Editor of the journal proposed that "structural racism is an unfortunate term to describe a very real problem," and that "taking racism out of the conversation would help" to ensure "all people who lived in disadvantaged circumstance have equal opportunities to become successful and have better qualities of life.

[104][105] Columnists Eric Zorn and Daniel Henninger asserted in separate Op-Eds that the resignation of the two editors was an unfortunate substitute for meaningful conversations about racism and health care,[106][107] and the episode was highlighted as a case study of social media, polarization, and radicalization in Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott's 2023 book The Canceling of the American Mind.

"[109] In 2023, members of the Endocrine Society submitted a resolution that advocated against legislation criminalizing access to gender-affirming healthcare and supported efforts to oppose discriminatory policies.

During the Civil Rights Movement, the American Medical Association's policy of allowing its constituent groups to be racially segregated in areas with widespread prejudice faced opposition from doctors as well as other healthcare professionals.

Pressure from organizations such as the Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR) resulted in changed policies by the late 1960s.

In the book Free to Choose, the Friedmans stated that "the AMA has engaged in extensive litigation charging chiropractors and osteopathic physicians with the unlicensed practice of medicine, in an attempt to restrict them to as narrow an area as possible.

"[113] The AMA was also criticized for holding up licensing of foreign-trained medical professionals who, after Adolf Hitler came to power, were fleeing to the U.S. from Nazi-controlled Germany and adjacent nations.

[113] Profession and Monopoly also criticized the AMA for limiting the supply of physicians and inflating the cost of medical care in the U.S. as well as its influence on hospital regulation.

[114][page needed] In a 1987 antitrust court case, a federal district judge called the AMA's behavior toward chiropractors "systematic, long-term wrongdoing".

[115] In October 2020, the association used Twitter and Facebook to publicly oppose scope of practice creep, where non-physicians are permitted to provide healthcare services without physician oversight.

The posts were removed the same day and the AMA commented that they were committed to "team-based healthcare guided by a physician" to "optimize patient outcomes.

[117] Rebekah Bernard from the advocacy group Physicians for Patient Protection publicly criticized the AMA for retracting their social media posts.