A step which would go far to ameliorating some malpractice problem confronting doctors, insurance companies, and most of all the general public, is being taken under the guidance of the American- Medical Association. Meeting in convention the medical group has intitiated steps by which they may set up their own. insurance program to either supplement malpractice payment claims from regular insurors, or in some instances provide the basic malpractice insurance which most doctors need to practice today. Protective insurance has been set up by other industries and professional groups when it was found that regular insurance companies were unable or unwilling to provide needed coverage. This has been done with much success in the newspaper business in the field of libel insurance. There would be a great collateral benefit to the medical profession in the formation of its own insurance organization, in addition to having its own skilled staff to protect from malpractice claims. – If the insurance is issued by a doctor owned insurance company, or one sponsored by their organizations such as the AMA or state medical groups, we could look to a tightening up of self-policing in the profession which would be of great benefit to the public, as well as eliminating many of the causes of malpractice suits. There would be a much greater stimulus to doctors to weed out the occasional practitioner who is not up to the standards of his profession. We are certain that if an AMA insurance system is set up it would result in much closer scrutiny being made regularly of the many areas in which buses or errors can slip in if regulation is perfunctory, or in some cases less than that in the long run this would benefit the profession and the public and would make defense against malpractice suits much stronger, when and if they should get to court. We were also glad to see the AMA withdraw or weaken its support of doct0r’s strikes such as have been recently held in Los Angeles and New York. Such action on the part of doctors, no matter how deep the grievance, causes the profession as a whole to lose much of the respect in which it is held. And loss of respect and public approbation is probably the worst injury that physicians can suffer.