It has a large national circulation that cuts across geographic regions, practice settings and medical specialties. AMNews is directed to physicians in private practice and physicians on hospital and managed care staffs, in military service and on medical faculties. A large portion of the nonphysician readers are medical students. These professional watchers of the health policy scene make up a small percentage of print circulation, but their work has an important impact on the medical profession. AMNews ' forte is delivering news about the medical profession not found in other publications.
Regular coverage includes such topics as ethics, practice trends and legal issues.
Other general medical publications compete for doctors' time, they do not cover the same range of topics. In particular, no other publication besides AMNews devotes as much focus to professional, regulatory, public health and health market coverage. Readership surveys have found that, despite being weekly, AMNews is ranked high in terms of its timeliness and accuracy. Although some of the same regulatory and other events are covered by the daily major media, AMNews presents concise but detailed information not provided by the lay press, and a socioeconomic, practice-oriented slant not found in clinical journals. AMNews ' reporting, writing and design have won numerous prestigious newspaper industry awards.