AMDA Long Term Care Medicine - 2015

he American Medical Directors Association (AMDA), was officially chartered in June, 1978, when Dr. James Pattee (as the AMA's representative) and Mr. Herman Gruber (of the AMA Aging Committee staff) went to Hilton Head, South Carolina, to swear in Dr. William Dodd as founding president of the organization. Dr. Dodd, a family practitioner based in Macon, Georgia, recognized the need to organize and educate physicians who would fulfill the role of the physician medical director created by federal mandate in 1975.

The association stayed in Georgia until 1988, when it moved to Washington, DC, where it could better influence the momentous changes ushered in by the passage of OBRA '87. Indeed, AMDA commented on virtually every regulation stemming from the OBRA '87 legislation. This increased activity in national public policy began a period of membership building that attracted younger primary-care physicians who were becoming increasingly involved in long term care.