Dr. Lila Wallis: Armchair Research at 98 Years

This past January Dr. Laurel Waters and I had the good fortune and opportunity to visit Dr. Lila Wallis, AMWA Past President and a pioneer in women’s health. Remember how you learned how to perform your first pelvic exam on trained subjects in medical school? That was a program started by Dr. Wallis to ensure that physicians would learn how to perform these exams properly to minimize discomfort for the woman patient. Dr. Wallis would go on to become a trailblazer in women’s health, co-authoring one of the leading resources, Textbook on Women’s Health.

In 1998, AMWA established the Lila A. Wallis Women’s Health Award. Past recipients have included women’s health trailblazers in their own right — Dr. Patricia P. Barry, Dr. Sheila Blume, Dr. Janine Clayton, Dr. Florence Haseltine, Dr. Wendy Klein, Dr. Donald Lindberg, Dr. Susan M. Love, Dr. Saralyn Mark, Dr. Nawal Nour, Dr. Patricia J. Numann, Dr. Janet Rose Osuch, Dr. Natalie Rasgon, Dr. Gloria Elizabeth Sarto, Dr. Adaline Satterthwaite, Dr. Vicki L. Seltzer, Dr. Nada Stotland, and Dr. Norma Jo Waxman. The 2019 recipient is Dr. Susan Kornstein, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Women’s Health, and Executive Director, VCU Institute for Women’s Health.

In her 9^th decade of life, Dr. Wallis remains as sharp as ever, continuing what she coins “armchair research” in her advocacy of women’s health. We reminisced with her on a sunny afternoon in Southern California and also connected by FaceTime with Dr. Satty Keswani, another long-time AMWA leader.

Here is a message from Dr. Wallis to future generations of AMWA leaders —