The Ethiopian Medical Association (EMA), the first professional association in the country, was formally established in July 1962 through a formal Charter granted to it by the then Emperor Haile Selassie I. The Association was from the beginning named “The Ethiopian Medical Association” (EMA) and has retained the name to date, except between 1985 and 1992 during the Derg regime when it was called “Ethiopian Medical Doctors’ Association” (EMDA).
EMA publishes Ethiopian oldest medical journal, The “Ethiopian Medical Journal” (EMJ) which is the official organ of the Ethiopian Medical Association (EMA). The journal is first appeared under the title of both Amharic “የኢትዮጵያ ሕክምና ጋዜጣ” and English “Ethiopian Medical Journal” on July, 1962. Since then, the quarterly journal played an important role in keeping record for the progress of scientific medicine, and to assist in rendering the practice of medicine in all its branches in Ethiopia and Africa at large.
In the mid 1980’s (’85-86) the Ethiopian government in power formed the Workers’ Party of Ethiopia (WPE) which restricts all EMA’s Activities.
In October 1991 a few meetings were held by some Physicians in Addis Ababa University that paved the way for a meeting of physicians from various hospitals in Addis Ababa in November 1991. The meeting was held in the Lecture Hall of the School of Medicine and there were about a 100 physicians at the meeting. A committee mandated to work towards the reestablishment of the EMA was elected at this meeting. The committee was called the Interim Executive Committee and the specific tasks it was given were
- To prepare the annual medical conference to take place in May 1992 and
- To draft a new EMA constitution for ratification at the May 1992 conference.
The Annual conference took place in May 1992 and the new EMA constitution was approved and a new executive committee was elected for a period of 3 years. EMA continues to conduct its annual conference and held the 56th Annual Medical Conference and International Health and wellness Exhibition in Addis Ababa, Skylight Hotel from Feb 21-23, 2020.
From the year 1992 to date, EMA accomplished a lot of major activities. To mention the most recent major achievements: in 2015, EMA started to widen its accessibility to reach out more members in different regions and EMA now has 9 regional branch offices, In 2016, EMA started online learning management program (www.cpdema.org) and make a web-based submission and publication of Ethiopian Medical Journal (www.emjema.org) , In 2017, EMA promoted its Medical Exhibition from national level to International, from 2018, EMA managed to celebrate “Ethiopian Doctors day” every year on July 2 since then. EMA has now more than 3,000 members.
Ethiopian Medical Association is a
• Member of World Medical Education
• Consortium of Christian Relief and Development Association (CCRDA)
• Ethiopian Red Cross society
• Ethiopian Civil societies Forum
• Member of National Ethics Committee
• Member of regional Ethics Committee