John C. Nelson is a

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

who served as president of the

American Medical Association The American Medical Association (AMA) is a professional association and lobbying group of physicians and medical students. Founded in 1847, it is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Membership was approximately 240,000 in 2016. The AMA's state ...

Tenure as president

While president of the American Medical Association in 2005, he was quoted supporting New York Medical College's decision to ban a

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

student group. The college is affiliated with New York's

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

archdiocese. He later said his remarks were misrepresented. The AMA officially came out against the ban. Following Nelson's comments, the

Gay and Lesbian Medical Association GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality (GLMA) is an international organization of approximately 1,000 LGBT healthcare professionals and students of all disciplines. Its members include physicians, advanced practice nurses, physician ...

requested a meeting with the AMA leadership regarding his comments and the NYMC decision. According to the AMA, Dr. Nelson apologized for his comments and gave his support for addressing issues important to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) physicians. The AMA agreed to include LGBT health in its Commission to End Health Care Disparities, which had previously focused on race and ethnicity.American Medical Association "Joint statement of the AMA and Gay and Lesbian Medical Association" 15 March 2005. http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/14847.html Dr. Nelson was succeeded as AMA president by Edward Hill. In 2008, Dr. Nelson was appointed to th
Whole Child Committee
for the national children's charity

Operation Kids Operation Kids is a public 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 1999 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Operation Kids provides customized philanthropic services at no cost to donors seeking to give money to children's organizations.Operation Kids ...

References

20th-century American physicians Sexual orientation and medicine Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Presidents of the American Medical Association {{US-physician-stub