Entering our 108th Year & Going Strong!

AMWA’s greatest value, impact and legacy has always resided in its people.  For more than 100 years, the women and men of AMWA have worked to advance the cause of women in medicine and to support them to bring their energies, intelligence and skills to the work of healing our people and our society.

Our Centennial Book, published on the occasion of our 100^th Anniversary Meeting in Chicago in 2015 provides an in-depth retrospective of AMWA’s historical community and accomplishments. A briefer overview of our history and other resources can be found here.

Today, initiatives led by our members range from  Career Development and Leadership programming to Fertility and Family Planning and Medical Humanities initiatives across all forms of expression, including letters, film, fine arts, dance and more.  Advocacy is an area where we have significant investment and multiple active committees that are always open to new members. Our teams advocate to address serious problems such as gun violence, domestic violence, human trafficking, reproductive rights, career inequities, healthcare disparities, and patterns of unconscious bias. Learn more about our initiatives here.

Our members are continually striving to give a hand up to other women physicians and to women leaders in general.  AMWA leader Deborah M. Shlian, MD, MBA is just one example of this. In her recent work Lessons Learned: Stories from Women Physician Leaders, Dr. Shlian brought together an array of women physician leaders who share their compelling stories of their career challenges and triumphs. Nearly half of the contributors to the book are AMWA members — including AMWA President Theresa Rohr-Kirchgraber, MD, MPH, who wrote the Forward. Lessons Learned can be purchased here; sales benefit AMWA and American Association for Physician Leadership.

Following are reflections from a few members on their experiences with AMWA…