Association of Internes and Medical Students

The Association of Internes and Medical Students (AIMS) was an American progressive political and social organization composed of medical students and interns, advocating for issues such as national health insurance, anti-discrimination in medical schools, and salaries for interns.[1][2] The organization was established in 1941, formed by the merger of two predecessor organizations: the Interne Council of America (ICA), founded in 1934 as the Interne Council of Greater New York, and the Association of Medical Students (AMS), founded in 1937.[1] AIMS published The Interne, which absorbed the AMS' Journal of the Association of Medical Students.

The AIMS was at odds with the older American Medical Association (AMA) on some issues, especially national health care. In 1948, during the Second Red Scare, the AMA attacked AIMS for "exhibiting communistic tendencies" and by 1952 AIMS and its publication were defunct, a victim of shrinking membership and anti-communist McCarthyism.[1][3]

Leaders of AIMS included Walter Lear,[4] Lewis Rowland,[5] Arthur Sackler, and Henry Sigerist.[1]

References edit

  1. ^ a b c d Harmon, Robert G. (1978). "Intern and Resident Organizations in the United States: 1934-1977". The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly. Health and Society. 56 (4): 500–530. doi:10.2307/3349574. JSTOR 3349574.
  2. ^ Mullan, Fitzhugh (2006). White Coat, Clenched Fist: The Political Education of an American Physician. University of Michigan Press. pp. 51–. ISBN 0-472-03197-X.
  3. ^ Chowkwanyun & Howell 2019, p. 1871
  4. ^ Dittmer, John (2009). The Good Doctors: The Medical Committee for Human Rights and the Struggle for Social Justice in Health Care. New York: Bloomsbury Press. p. 11. ISBN 9781596915671.
  5. ^ Grady, Denise (23 March 2017). "Dr. Lewis Rowland, Leading Neurologist on Nerve and Muscle Diseases, Dies at 91". The New York Times.

Journal articles

Further reading edit

  • Brickman, Jane Pacht (2013). "Medical McCarthyism and the Punishment of Internationalist Physicians in the United States". In Anne-Emanuelle Birn; Theodore M. Brown (eds.). Comrades in Health: U.S. Health Internationalists, Abroad and at Home. Rutgers University Press. pp. 82–100. ISBN 9780813561226.