"If we wanted to do anything credible in the area of health disparities, we had to take responsibility for any role the association had to play in segregation in the medical profession," he said.
The 4,000-word history does not delve into the motivation behind the actions but rather chronicles their impact, Wynia said. "We don't know what drove the decisions, but we know what the decisions were and we know what the impact was, and we know the impact is still with us," he said.
"This legacy has such profound effects today but it's really not known, especially among white doctors," Wynia said.
"If you don't recognize this whole cultural backdrop to that relationship, you're liable to become defensive and annoyed if someone doesn't automatically trust you, and if you perceive African-American colleagues as having unjustified anger" about joining the medical society, Wynia said.
At the same time, the AMA does not reflect a unified medical voice because many African-American and progressive white doctors refuse to join as a result of its history.
Carnell Cooper, a trauma surgeon at the Maryland Shock Trauma Center, praised the AMA for making what he called a remarkable statement, given its magnitude and influence. He hoped this would lead to more support for increasing the number of African-Americans in medicine - a proportion that is declining in his speciality.
"It's especially important, I think, as we try to work as a society to increase those numbers, it is important that the AMA show this sort of support for such efforts," Cooper said.
The public apology adds the AMA to a growing list of institutions that have sought to make amends for discriminatory pasts. Maryland lawmakers, for example, passed in 2007 and the governor signed a resolution expressing "profound regret" for the state's role in slavery
And President Bill Clinton expressed regret in 1997 for one of the most notorious chapters in racist medical care: a long-running research project based in Tuskegee, Ala., that monitored - but did not treat - hundreds of black men with syphilis.
The AMA history notes that it did not require state-level chapters to desegregate until 1968, after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 required hospitals to integrate to continue to receive federal Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement. By that time most state chapters had already admitted black members.
