Catching up on AMA Wire

/ Kevin B. O'Reilly

Last month, I left the College of American Pathologists to rejoin the American Medical Association. Once upon a time, I worked as a reporter for American Medical News, the AMA’s weekly newspaper. And then I didn’t. And then I joined the CAP, which was a lovely place to work.

But now I’m back at the AMA. To wit:

The job principally involves writing for, and editing, AMA Wire. That is an online-only news site that publishes about 500 stories a year. These stories are included an email newsletter that goes to about 250,000 physician subscribers.

Unlike AMNews, Wire is explicitly designed to promote AMA policies, goals and strategic initiatives among practicing physicians, medical students, residents and fellows. So there is an element of marketing communications to the gig, but the main tools used to do that are news-like storytelling and a fair deal of fact-finding and sharing. It is an interesting challenge, and I am enjoying the chance to work with a kind and talented group of people.

I have been so busy getting up to speed on the job that I haven’t made the time to post many links to my articles, as has been my custom. I’ve now created a page here for my AMA Wire stories.  So far, I’ve covered speeches at the AMA’s interim meeting by its president and CEO, team-based care, gun violence, care for LGBT patients, mobile health apps, health care reform, antibiotic stewardship and statin prescribing.

Stay tuned to this website for more, if you are so inclined. Or follow me on Twitter.