Advocacy

AMWA Advocacy Calendar: Click on any month to learn more!

January February March April May June July August September October November December

AMWA is dedicated to the advancement of women in medicine and to improving women’s health via advocacy for women in the legal, social, and educational realms. AMWA provides a voice and an outlet for us as future physicians to make an impact on our role as professionals within our national healthcare system, as well as the health and well-being of all of our patients, especially the unique concerns of women.

The goals for Advocacy are focused around three principles: awareness, discussion, and action.

Awareness: AMWA Advocacy will serve as a major information outlet for members, providing education on current events surrounding advocacy for women in medicine and women’s health, in addition to updates on healthcare reform, healthcare disparities, and advocacy events occurring regionally and nationally.
Discussion: Often times as a medical student it may feel as though you are merely a spectator of the legislative process and any reforms enacted that will affect both you and your patients. AMWA Advocacy seeks to generate discussion among its student members about issues that concern us and stimulate a call to action. Specifically, AMWA Advocacy will work to develop an easily accessible forum where members can feel free to raise awareness in their peers and generate brainstorming on ways that AMWA can help make a difference.
Action: Most importantly, Advocacy looks to get student members involved. Student members will be able to use AMWA to easily contact their respective members of Congress and make their opinion heard. AMWA Advocacy facilitates this process through Letter-Writing Campaigns that focus on particular issues throughout the year. Advocacy will motivate and support regional and local student leaders in the education of their colleagues on activist issues and the organization of events that stimulate activism in our communities. Advocacy will also recruit student members to AMWA projects that focus on issues of national importance. The results of those advocacy efforts will be displayed at the National AMWA Student Conference in 2012.

As this page is growing and developing, Advocacy encourages you to explore the information available through the AMWA main site and other advocacy-related links provided below. Please send any comments, questions, or concerns to advocacy@amwa-student.org. Thank you!

An introductory summary of all of AMWA's Position Papers for 2012 is available or full text articles are available under Position Papers under the Advocacy tab in the left hand menu.

AMWA

Check out the following guides and information for medical students:

Breastfeeding Awareness
Domestic Violence Awareness
H.R. 3 "Smith Bill" aka “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act"
(with form for letter writing campaign)
Women and the Affordable Care Act

Also, visit AMWA's Advocacy Main Page, view Position Statements to learn where AMWA stands on the issues, and AMWA's past Letters and Amici.

Government

Contact your Congressional Representative and let them know that you stand with AMWA on the issues!

Health Policy

AMWA supports the efforts of many organizations whose sole focus is Health Policy.

Also visit Raising Women’s Voices for the Health Care We Need, a national initiative working to make sure women’s voices are heard and women’s concerns are addressed as policymakers put the new health reform law into action. RWV was founded by the Avery Institute for Social Change, the National Women’s Health Networ, and the MergerWatch Project of Community Catalyst.

Raising Women's Voices recently published a particularly compelling piece on What Health Care Reform Will Do for Women and Families.

General Health Information

HealthCare.gov - A federal government Website managed by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.

Womenshealth.gov - The subset Website from the Office on Women’s Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Past and Current Affiliations and Projects

Pearl of Wisdom - The Pearl of Wisdom Campaign to Prevent Cervical Cancer is a united, global effort to raise awareness of the opportunities now available to prevent cervical cancer, launched in the U.S. in January 2009.

The Clothesline Project - The Clothesline Project is a program started in 1990 on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to address the issue of violence against women. It is a vehicle for women affected by violence to express their emotions by decorating a shirt. They then hang the shirt on a clothesline to be viewed by others as testimony to the problem of violence against women. With the support of many, it has since spread world-wide.

AMWA Advocacy Calendar

January

Cervical Health Awareness Month
National Stalking Awareness Month
National Birth Defects Prevention Month
National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month
January 6-12, 2013: National Folic Acid Awareness Week
January 22, 1973: Supreme Court Decision on Roe V. Wade was issued

February

International Prenatal Infection Prevention Month
National Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Month
February 24-March 2, 2013 is National Eating Disorders Awareness Week
February 3^rd: Happy Birthday Elizabeth Blackwell
- Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States. She graduated on 23 January 1849 from Geneva Medical College.

March

National Endometriosis Awareness Month
Women's History Month
March 8th is International Women's Day
March 10th is National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day
March 23rd, 2010: the Affordable Care Act passed

April

Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month
Women’s Eye Health and Safety Month
April 21-27: National Infertility Awareness Week
April 3^rd: Happy Birthday Jane Goodall
- Goodall studied social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania for 45 years. She is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and has worked extensively on conservation and animal welfare issues.

May

American Stroke Month
Lupus Awareness Month
National Arthritis Awareness Month
National Osteoporosis Awareness and Prevention Month
National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month
Preeclampsia Awareness Month
May 12: Fibromyalgia Awareness Day
May 12: Mother's Day
May 14: National Women’s Check-Up Day
May 12-18, 2013: National Women’s Health Week
May 13-19, 2013: National Alcohol & Other Drug-Related Birth Defects Week
May 27: Happy Birthday Rachel Carson
- Carson was an American marine biologist and conservationist whose book Silent Spring and other writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement.

June

National Scleroderma Awareness Month
National Congenital Cytomegalovirus Awareness Month
June 7: Happy Birthday Virginia Apgar
- Apgar is the developer of the Apgar score, a method of assessing the health of newborn babies that has drastically reduced infant mortality all over the world.

July

International Group B Strep Awareness Month
July 25: Happy Birthday Rosalind Franklin
- Franklin's work led to the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA. She used x-ray diffraction to study DNA, RNA, coal, viruses, and graphite.

August

National Immunization Awareness Month
National Breastfeeding Month
August 1, 2012: The "Contraceptive Mandate" of the Affordable Care Act came into effect. It mandates that all new health insurance plans cover access to preventive health care services including mammograms, FDA approved contraceptives, STI testing and counseling, breastfeeding support, domestic violence screening and counseling without deductible, co-pay or cost-sharing.
August 1-7: World Breastfeeding Week
August 15, 1896: Happy Birthday Gert Corti
- Gerty Cori was the first American woman to win a Nobel Prize in science (1947) for discovering the enzymes that convert glycogen into sugar and back again to glycogen.

September

Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month
September 14, 1879: Happy Birthday Margaret Sanger
- Sanger is widely considered the founder of the modern reproductive rights movement. She was a birth control advocate, nurse, and sex educator who opened the first birth control clinic in the United States and founded Planned Parenthood.
- September 25: National Women’s Health and Fitness Day
- September 27: RAINN Day (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network Day)

October

National Breast Cancer Awareness Month
National Domestic Violence Awareness Month
October 19: National Mammography Day

November

National Family Caregivers Month
November 1st, 1848 : The first medical college for women opened.
- Twelve women enrolled in the New England Female Medical College in Boston to study midwifery, but two years later the college began offering a full medical curriculum. It merged with the Boston University School of Medicine in 1874.
- November 7^th: Happy Birthday Marie Curie
  - Curie is the only woman ever to win two Nobel Prizes. In 1903 her discovery of radioactivity earned her the Nobel Prize in physics. In 1911 she won it for chemistry.

December

December 1: World AIDS Day

You can find more information about many of these dates here.

American Medical Women's Association:

The Vision and Voice of Women in Medicine Since 1915