OMA BOT Book 4.24.2024

AMA Delegate Handbook 11/10/2016 Ethan Lazarus, MD

The OMA currently has one seat in the house of delegates at the AMA. The OMA is also allowed an alternate delegate. Further the OMA is allowed to endorse delegates from other state and specialty societies. This is not like OMA or TOS – it is more like congress. The house meets to debate policy decisions. Delegates must function like congress-people, and make decisions on the fly with coalitions built up to support these decisions. The AMA holds two meetings per year. The big meeting is the annual meeting. This occurs in Chicago each summer. The content matter can be anything. The interim meeting is held in the winter and the location varies every year, although every 5 th year it meets in Honolulu (including i17). This meeting has more of a focus on advocacy, and is less intensive, but still very important. Roughly 2 weeks prior to each meeting, all materials for the meeting are posted to the AMA web site. All AMA members can view these materials and can participate in the on-line discussion forums debating the issues prior to the meeting at www.ama-assn.org. All board members / EC members may log in to the AMA web site and preview the handbook and recommend items for inclusion for discussion. Additional resolutions are accepted up until the meeting, and occasionally new resolutions are introduced at the meeting. Some will be added to an addendum 1 week before, while others show up in the “Sunday Tote” during the meeting, and are posted to the web site when available. Typically, the OMA delegates review the titles and resolved clauses of the handbook when posted; however, reading the entire handbook is time intensive – multiple hours, and frankly, much of this review often occurs on the plane to the meeting and even at the meeting. Having more than one delegate helps make sure we don’t miss important items of business. Part of this review happens at the meeting (addendum, Sunday Tote). Delegates are tasked with participating in house of delegates meetings and reference committee meetings. Delegates may vote in the house. Alternates may not vote; however, the delegate and alternate can trade – delegates receive a salmon colored card – if given to the alternate, the alternate is allowed to function as the delegate. This does not function like other medical societies – this is primarily an organization forming policy. Delegates function like congress – it’s like a 5 day board meeting. Resolutions are fluid. Word substitutions happen all the time. Resolved clauses get added and dropped. A single word can change the resolution – for example, when obesity was recognized as a disease, debated on the floor of the