The mission of the Association of American Medical Colleges is to improve the health of the public by enhancing the effectiveness of academic medicine.
Academic medicine is a unique resource in American health care.
It is responsible for producing each new generation of physicians, creating new knowledge, and caring for patients, who often have special needs. As the United States undergoes a transformation of its health care system, it is critical to deal with the consequences of those changes for academic medicine. Medical schools and teaching hospitals have unique and valuable roles in the nation's health care system. Their contributions depend on multiple sources of financing, each of which is increasingly constrained. This simultaneous challenge to all sources of support jeopardizes the ability of medical schools and teaching hospitals to meet their societal commitments.