About AMWA Student Division

Perhaps you’re wondering why you should join the AMWA Student Division. After all, as you look around your medical school classes, you notice that there are just as many women as men, so who needs an organization to advocate for and support the interests of female medical students? Well, the answer is that you need us and we need you. A look at how far we’ve come as women in medicine, where we stand now, and what we can offer to you and to each other makes the next step clear: You should join AMWA's Student Division today!

Our Relevance | Our Needs | Our Mission | Suggested Reading

Our Relevance

The advances made by women in the medical field have indeed been enormous since Elizabeth Blackwell in 1849 became the first female to graduate from a U.S. medical school. She, and many pioneering women who followed her, were truly inspiring people - determined, dedicated, and unswerving in their pursuit of careers as physicians, doggedly working for acceptance and the advancement of female doctors, and fiercely advocating for better medical care for women. (Read about Dr. Blackwell and the history of women in medicine here.)

After breaking down the initial barriers, the progress of women in medicine advanced incrementally over the following decades. By the turn of the century, 5% of U.S. physicians were women, and by 1960 that number had increased to only 7%. Since 1960 when the last medical school in the United States finally opened its doors to women, the number of female doctors has risen gradually with women totaling 12% of practicing physicians in 1980, 17% in 1990, and continuing to increase thereafter until females now comprise about 30% of practicing physicians and nearly 50% of U.S. medical students.

Yet today, despite these remarkable advances, many challenges persist - more subtle than those faced by early female doctors, but still very real. Striking differences between male and female physicians continue to exist in areas such as salary, choice of specialty, and research grant funding. Even with important factors such as location, specialty choice, and work hours controlled for, female physicians entering medical practice after residency training now earn almost $17,000 less per year than their male counterparts, with the reasons for the pay differential unclear. Disparities are also evident in the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women in academic medicine and the basic sciences, as well as in the percentage of females who rise to executive levels in medical institutions. Family-unfriendly work hours and expectations make it challenging for women to balance a medical career and a family, and the demands associated with pregnancy, childbirth, and raising children may sometimes create barriers to career advancement and tenure. In addition, besides quantitative differences in professional career paths and the amount of compensation paid, clinical research is increasingly finding differences in women’s presenting symptoms for medical conditions such as heart attacks and gender-specific responses to medications and treatments.

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Our Needs

The needs of women as physicians and as patients therefore continue to demand our attention, our support, and our advocacy. We cannot afford to rest on our laurels and think that organizations such as ours that focus on furthering the interests of women in medicine are no longer needed. Although many doors are now open and an abundance of opportunities are available, circumstances persist that have the potential to disadvantage women. To continue to make progress, women must support each other by lending a helping hand, by mentoring students and colleagues, and by advocating for the needs of women who are studying and working in our medical schools, universities, hospitals and clinics. In addition, female medical students can help preserve and advance the accomplishments already achieved by binding together to expand and strengthen organizational systems such as AMWA Students, which establish a network for women in medicine and provide professional and financial support for female students as they study, train, and begin their careers.

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Our Mission

Join hands with us in the AMWA Student Division and help us help ourselves and each other as women, and as future physicians, scientists, and leaders in medicine, as we stand together and speak loudly on behalf of the needs and rights of women doctors and female patients. It costs little to become a member, but the benefits to you and other women are huge! We offer scholarships, travel grants to our national meetings or for rotations overseas, leadership and global health awards, free housing during residency interviews in some locations, and most importantly, the opportunity to meet and join with other female medical students and prominent women in medicine who can provide an invaluable resource not just during medical school but for a lifetime.

Join AMWA today!

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American Medical Women's Association:

The Vision and Voice of Women in Medicine Since 1915

About AMWA Student Division

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Our Relevance

Our Needs

Our Mission

Suggested Reading