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PREAMBLE of the AMERICAN MEDICAL STUDENT ASSOCIATION

The American Medical Student Association is dedicated to the improvement of medical education, health care, and health care delivery so that health care may become more personal and holistic in a world of increasing technology and efficiency.  We define health as a positive, dynamic state of physical, mental and environmental well-being, and therefore, believe that health care should be oriented toward the achievement of health and not solely a treatment of disease. Health maintenance, then, becomes a basic responsibility of all individuals, and health professionals become the colleagues of patients in the management and maintenance of health.

We believe that access to quality health care is a right, not a privilege. This implies equal access to equally high standards of health care regardless of economic status, political beliefs, cultural background, geographic position, race, creed, national origin, age, sex, sexual orientation and gender identity, physical handicap, mental handicap or institutionalization for criminal, medical or psychiatric reasons. Since resources are limited, they should be allocated so that they equitably promote the public health; thus, health-care issues must be addressed in the public forum.