Ronald Davis: Public Face Of AMA Apology

JACKI LYDEN, host:

Now, we take a moment to mark the death of a doctor who was also a patient. Dr. Ronald M. Davis died Thursday at his home near East Lansing, Michigan. He was 52 and battling pancreatic cancer.

Dr. Davis was a public-health physician. This summer, he became the public face of an apology. In July, the American Medical Association formally apologized to black doctors for more than a century of racial discrimination. Ronald Davis was president of the AMA in the year leading up to the apology, and he played a key role in its delivery.

Dr. RONALD DAVIS (Public Health Physician): What a group apology like this does is, it indicates the current moral orientation of the organization, and it lays down a marker that we can use to judge our current and future activities. This apology is really all about looking at our past so that we can build a better future.

LYDEN: That's Ronald Davis on NPR's Tell Me More this past summer. Earlier in the year, Dr. Davis informed the AMA of his illness. He told a colleague, we know there are survivors, and I'm going to be one of them.

Dr. Ronald Davis didn't make it, but the apology he argued for lives on. The week it was issued, he wrote, the medical profession, which is based on a boundless respect for human life, had an obligation to lead society away from disrespect of so many lives. Dr. Ronald M. Davis died at home on Thursday. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.