The Alberta Medical Association's Committee on Archives was formed some time before 1935. The first major project of the committee was to accumulate medical data on the Northwest Territories/Alberta medical pioneers, which they forwarded to Dr. Heber C. Jamieson. He completed his authoritative book (The History of Early Medicine) in Alberta in 1947.
The committee's next major historical task was to write a series of articles on the development of medical and hospital care in Alberta as part of the province's 50th anniversary celebrations. This culminated with the Jubilee issue of the Alberta Medical Bulletin in 1955. Shortly thereafter, the committee stimulated Dr. John Scott to write a History of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Alberta in 1964, and Dr. Angus McGugan's A History of the University of Alberta Hospital in 1964.
The third major review of medicine in Alberta was the publishing of 25 topics covering medicine in Alberta, by Dr. Carl Betke, as Medicine in Alberta: Historical Reflections in 1993.
The Alberta Medical Foundation (AMF)
In 1981, the AMA Committee on Archives asked the AMA to consider reorganizing it as a foundation so that it could receive donations, in kind or in cash, to support its activities. Shortly thereafter, the AMA was the recipient of a generous bequest from the estate of Dr. Margaret Hutton, a long-time AMA member.
Following representations to the AMA Board of Directors by Dr. Donald A. Wilson, the AMA agreed to transfer the funds to the Foundation, which was completed in 1987.
Since 1987 the AMF has disbursed (or had matched) more than $1 million for the funding of a Chair in the History of Medicine in Calgary, for annual library grants to the medical libraries at the universities of Alberta and Calgary and for financial assistance to publish books on various aspects of Alberta's medical history.
In 1990, the AMF began its support for the History of Medicine Program at the University of Calgary by funding the History of Medicine Days. This has become an annual event at which students from every medical school in Canada are invited to make presentations.
The AMF also supports the History of Medicine Program at the University of Alberta.