The American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA) ends 2022 with greetings to our MWIA community with wishes for a prosperous and healthy 2023!

AMWA is pleased to present the proceedings of the successful November 2021 Sex and Gender Health Education Summit, https://www.sghesummit.com/. This multidisciplinary conference, co-led by AMWA, and co-chaired by Connie Newman, MD, Jewel Kling, MD, Rebecca Sleeper, PHARMD, and Eliza Chin, MD, MPH, highlighted curriculum approaches, awareness, support, and integration of the intersectionality of sex, gender, race, and social determinants with health. 

AMWA released the Roundtable Proceedings from a stakeholder roundtable focusing on obesity and its impact on women at https://www.amwa-doc.org/news/women-and-the-obesity-epidemic-time-for-action/. This report includes essential discussion elements and recommended actions for helping to stem the obesity epidemic in women in the U.S.

AMWA leaders honored French President Macron at the White House. This opportunity is significant to AMWA since the work of the American Women’s Hospital Service began in 1917 in France, sending women physicians to provide medical needs in France during WWI. More on this at https://www.amwa-doc.org/news/amwa-leaders-honor-macron-in-washington-dc/

RESOLVE, the National Infertility Association, awarded the Hope for Advocacy Award to AMWA for work on physician infertility and advocating for awareness, education, research, and coverage https://www.amwa-doc.org/news/amwa-and-dr-paula-amato-honored-at-resolve-the-national-infertility-association-night-of-hope-gala/

AMWA and Korn Ferry released a joint report, Women in Medicine: Setting the Agenda for Change, https://www.amwa-doc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Final-AMWA-KF-Women-in-Medicine-Whitepaper.pdf. The report highlights career challenges women physicians face across settings and provides strategies to advance gender equity and women’s leadership in healthcare.

September Women in Medicine month was an active month for AMWA. We met with officials within the White House Office of Public Engagement to speak about reproductive health and climate change. We also honored 57 women physicians with the AMWA Inspire Award and launched a new lectureship in partnership with the Women in Medicine Legacy Foundation–Transforming Healthcare: Celebrating Women Physicians. Inaugural speakers were physician authors Dr. Danielle Ofri and Dr. Lucy Lester. We thank our MWIA colleagues for their support and attendance at the event. Video link: https://www.amwa-doc.org/event/transforming-health-care-celebrating-women-in-medicine/

AMWA is co-leading a Reproductive Health Coalition aimed at restoring and protecting access to reproductive health care despite the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Our focus is to reframe this as a healthcare issue not as a political, ideological, or religious issue. Most importantly, AMWA is standing against legislative efforts to interfere with the doctor-patient relationship. 

AMWA continues to work in the area of menstrual equity, LGBTQ health, gender equity. 

Menstrual Equity is a concern for AMWA, which has established a fund to support this work. 

On World AIDS day, AMWA honored the women medical pioneers and the lives tragically lost to the AIDS epidemic. https://www.amwa-doc.org/on-world-aids-day-amwa-remembers/.

We categorically condemn the targeting of peaceful protesters in Iran demanding equal and fundamental human rights and the targeting of Ukrainian civilians and healthcare facilities by Russian forces in Ukraine. 

AMWA invites members of MWIA to follow AMWA on Twitter https://twitter.com/AMWADoctors, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/amwadoctors, and YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/user/AMWADoctors/videos.

We enthusiastically welcome MWIA colleagues to the MWIA North America Congress and AMWA Annual Meeting “Thriving, Leading, Transforming” in Philadelphia, PA, March 23-26, 2023; an AMWA and MWIA archives visit planned.