Is the AMA Irrelevant or the Main Player in Medicine's Past, Present, and Future?

Writing (and editing) books is hard, even with multiple authors. Been there; done that. Fiction and non-fiction alike remain vital methods of communication, even after predictions that the internet would weaken their importance. The internet made it far easier to do the research to turn into books. Moreover, the internet's use by visionary entrepreneurs to sell books (and later virtually everything) greatly diminished independent and small bookstores. Of course, computers made the self-published book (often with no peer review, editing, fact-checking, or copy editing) a major industry. More books are now being published than ever before. Books sold and read, however, is an entirely different matter.

In the pre-internet era, author Paul Starr, Princeton Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, researched 220 years of literature to compile the data and references needed to inform a nearly 600-page volume called The Social Transformation of American Medicine.

In 1983, The New York Times called the book a "monumental achievement." It won numerous major literary awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, and has been undiminished by competition for nearly 40 years. If you ask 10 knowledgeable historians why American medicine is as it is in 2022, you may get 10 different answers. Viewpoints will depend in part on whether those experts are political scientists, economists, sociologists, generic "historians," practicing physicians, or politicians.