Archived Newsletters

We hope everyone is having a great summer. Read here the latest news from the Sex and Gender Women’s Health Collaborative.

The National Sex and Gender Based Medicine Physician Registry

In July, SGWHC invited over 50 physicians to be listed on the National SGBM Physician Registry that was announced at the SGBM Summit last Fall. This registry will be populated by a number of physicians who have been working in the field of Sex and Gender Medicine, and will be accessible to the general public who might be looking for a SGBM Physician. For ways you can be listed, click HERE. Watch your email for your invitation if you have been active with SGWHC and Sex and Gender Based Medicine.

COLLABORATORS

• Coalition for Imaging and Bioengineering Research: SGWHC has become the 100th organization to collaborate with the Coalition for Imaging and Bioengineering Research! One of the areas we have in common is sex and gender differences in imaging. In fact, Dr. Alyson J. McGregor’s new textbook, Sex and Gender in Acute Care Medicine, devotes an entire chapter to this issue.
• University of Colorado Center for Women’s Health Research: Don’t forget to mark your calendars for the National Conference on Women’s Health Research “Sex Differences Across the Lifespan: A Focus on Metabolism.”September 28-30 in beautiful Colorado Springs. University of Colorado is another new collaborating organization who shares vision and goals with SGWHC.

AMA WIM GROUP UPDATE

As we announced in the last newsletter, the AMA was poised to take up a Women’s Health resolution in June. The resolution asks that the AMA begin viewing women’s health through a sex and gender lens.
We have good news to report! The resolution, “An Expanded Definition of Women’s Health,” was adopted by consensus! Further, the report recommends that the AMA develop new policy that “recognize(s) the term ’women’s health’ as inclusive of all health conditions for which there is evidence of women’s risks, presentations, and/or responses to treatments are different from those of men, and encourage that evidence-based information regarding the impact of sex and gender be incorporated into medical practice, research and training.”
We owe a debt of gratitude to SGWHC board chair, Dr. Kimberly Templeton, who has persisted for two years in getting this resolution passed at the AMA. Thanks so much, Kim!

SCHOLARSHIP COMMITTEE

The SGWHC Scholarship Committee, aptly led by Tracy Madsen, MD, is working on the production of a new article. It will review current terminology/usage of terms relating to SGBM, identify discrepancies in terminology between major organizations, describe complexity surrounding these terms, and recommend that national organizations (including SGWHC) convene to develop consensus recommendations for terminology. Tracy managed to lead this committee while delivering and caring for her new baby boy, Miles Elliott Moore.

NEW RESOURCES

The SGWHC.org website now lists more cutting-edge references, two new books which specifically address sex and gender differences:

• Sex and Gender in Acute Care Medicine, edited by one of the SGWHC founding board members, Dr. Alyson J. McGregor of Brown University.
• Gender Medicine: the Groundbreaking New Science of Gender-and Sex-Based Diagnosis and Treatment, by Dr. Marek Glezerman, the founding president of the Israel Society for Gender Medicine and Professor Emeritus of ObGyn at Tel Aviv University School of Medicine.

Additionally, we have posted two new case studies, authored by Dr. McGregor and Dr. Rebecca Barron: “Colorectal Cancer in Women” and “Sex Differences in Chronic Pain.” Both of these studies are succinct, informative, and have great lists of up to date references.

SGWHC.org WEBSITE

Our membership is now up to 340, and we have a higher open rate than the industry average for our social media posts. Our usual open rate is 33-35%. Don’t forget to “like” us on Facebook and use our Twitter tag @GoWomensHealth.

A big shout out to our new Media Specialist, Sarah Khalil, a second year student at Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine. She has expertly added the above references to the SGWHC website, and has also been populating the SGWHC blog with interesting articles.

Board News

The SGWHC Board of Directors will miss the input from Mary Hornig, CFO of the Society for Women’s Health Research, who has been the SWHR representative to our board this year.  Mary has announced her retirement this month.  We welcome the addition of Heather Boyd, MPP, SWHR Director of Public Policy, as the new representative to SGWHC from SWHR.

COLLABORATORS

• AMA WIM GROUP: Kimberly Templeton, MD, the SGWHC Board Chair, has been working with the AMA through their Women In Medicine Committee.  The AMA will be taking up an important resolution at their June meeting, which asks that the AMA begin viewing women’s health through a sex and gender lens.  With the national and international push to begin using research and terminology which reflects sex and gender, we hope to start the process of advocating for sex and gender medicine in professional organizations.
• NASS: Board members, Jan Werbinski and Kim Templeton will be presenting sex and gender concepts at the North American Spine Society (NASS)  annual meeting in Boston this October.  The session, entitled Gender Specificity: It’s Time to Abandon “One Size Fits All” in Spine Care will be presented Thursday, October 27. With the leadership of Greg Whitcomb, a chiropractor in Milwaukee who has written in the area of sex differences in back pain, especially in pregnancy, the organization is poised to look at the spine through a sex and gender lens.
• UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO CENTER FOR WOMEN’S HEALTH RESEARCH: Judy Regensteiner, ED, would like us to inform our SGWHC members about their conference, “Sex Differences Across the Lifespan: A Focus on Metabolism.” Which will be held September 28-30, 2016 in Colorado Springs.  The conference will focus on sex differences in diabetes, obesity, and heart disease and they are taking applications for poster presentations until September 2. The conference is co-sponsored by the Society for Women’s Health Research.

SOCIAL MEDIA

SGWHC will be having a change in staffing.   Nicole Miller, the SGWHC Media Specialist, who has been so helpful with posting our information on the web and social media, will be transitioning to a full time job with her own independent travel agency. We want to thank her for her IT abilities, and the expert work she has done with the SGWHC.org site.  We will be welcoming our new Media Specialist, Sarah Kahlil, a student at Western Michigan University Homer Stryker School of Medicine.  Sarah has much experience with web design and management, and works with AMWA on their student web page.  Welcome, Sarah.

SGWHC.ORG Website

Don’t forget to like us on Facebook, and add #GoWomens Health to your Twitter Feed.  And, as always, please visit the www.sgwhc.orgwebsite often to enjoy our latest Blogs and Postings of articles, publications, research, and policy issues surrounding this important field of Sex and Gender Based Medicine.

SGWHC is having a very productive Spring, working on several new exciting projects.

Sex and Gender Medical Education Summit Update

For all those who attended the Sex and Gender Based Medical (SGBM) Education Summit at Mayo Clinic last October 19, the Proceedings Document is now complete and available.  You can view not only the Proceedings, but also the Powerpoint Presentations and Posters on the SGBMeducations Summit page.

We would also like to inform all of our members that the Biology of Sex Differences Journal will be publishing a special Supplement which will highlight not only the SGBM Summit, but will include other original papers and research on this timely emerging topic.

The National SGBM Practitioner Registry
Certified Practitioners to be listed soon!  Many physicians are currently completing the 10 hours of CME credit in order to qualify to become listed.

Check back as the providers progress and this important resource for patients searching for physicians knowledgeable in sex and gender medicine grows.

Additionally, the SGWHC board will soon be inviting members that meet qualifications to be listed in the SGBM Practitioner Registry.  This will be offered at no cost, based on a history of teaching, practicing, or researching in SGBM.  Watch your email boxes for a letter of invitation to submit your credentials, so you can take advantage of this opportunity to be included as a PreQualified Provider.

AMWA

Members of SGWHC Board attended the annual meeting of the American Medical Women’s Association in Miami this month to support our own Board Chair, Dr. Kimberly Templeton, as she assumed the 2016-17 Presidency of AMWA.  It was inspiring to see all the medical students again, especially the many AMWA students who attended and assisted at the SGBM Summit.

Re-Branding of SGWHC

The SGWHC Board of Directors are meeting with a consultant to learn the best way to brand and market this organization and engage on social media with our members.  Watch this Space, and don’t be surprised if you receive a survey asking for your input into this project.

SGWHC.org Website

Don’t forget to like us on Facebook, and add #GoWomens Health to your Twitter Feed.  And, as always, please visit the www.sgwhc.org website often to enjoy our latest Blogs and Postings of articles, publications, research, and policy issues surrounding this important field of Sex and Gender Based Medicine. Topics this month include:

• Sex bias in Health Apps of Smartphones
• The urgency of studying woman- specific pharmaceutical effects

The National Sex and Gender Physician Registry is now live on the SGWHC website and ready to list physicians who have mastered 10 hours of Continuing Medical Education in Sex and Gender Medicine.  The board has appointed a committee to create “Grandparenting” criteria. Look for SGWHC updates for a process to apply for this certification and a list of accepted members.

The SGWHC Scholarship Committee submitted a manuscript to Biology of Sex Differences Supplement including the Sex and Gender Medical Education Summit which presents a review of resources for researchers to enable them to adequately address sex and gender differences in their work.  Following the completed publication, this “Tool Kit” will enable researchers to better address sex and gender differences in keeping with the new NIH requirements. And for a little more news about our Scholarship Committee, Dr. Alyson McGregor will be rotating off as Chair.  We welcome Tracy Madsen, MD, who will assume that position.  Dr. Madsen is an Emergency Physician researcher who was one of the first to complete the two year Fellowship in Sex and Gender Emergency Medicine at the Brown University Alpert School of Medicine in Providence, Rhode Island.  We are excited to welcome her leadership to this committee.

And speaking of Dr. Alyson McGregor, if you haven’t seen her TED Talk about gender differences in medications, it is a must-see.  It is posted on the SGWHC home page, but you can access it on TED.com, too.  Since National TED.com placed it on their site, and since its posting in October, it has received almost 900,000 hits!  Congratulations to Alyson!

Membership to SGWHC has increased by 54% since the SGBM Summit in October. Over 44% of our members read the articles we posted in October and November.  This is dramatically greater than the average article opened for the healthcare industry (16%), so we are fortunate that our members engage in SGWHC postings.

At the request of Paul Bruce, Managing Partner of MCAP, a leading independent mortgage company in Toronto, Dr. Werbinski gave a presentation in November to their Women in the Mortgage Industry group.  The group has an interest in a modern approach to women’s health issues, and Dr. Werbinski presented the evidence of sex and gender differences as a necessary step in research and clinical care of both women and men.  She also highlighted the existence of gender differences in corporations, such as pay inequity and glass ceiling issues.  The standing room only audience received this presentation with enthusiasm.  We are extremely appreciative of the donation from MCAP to SGWHC as a result of that presentation.

The Board of Directors and Staff of SGWHC would like to wish all of our members, and all those who follow us on social media, a very happy, healthy holiday season and a Happy New Year in 2016!
Don’t miss the articles SGWHC posted this month including “Gender Differences in Infectious Diseases”, and the recent “USPSTF Recommendations to Congress” regarding research needs in women’s health.

October has been a very exciting month for the Sex and Gender Women’s Health Collaborative. We are thrilled that our efforts to promote sex and gender based medicine contributed to a Sex and Gender Medical Education Summit held at the Mayo Clinic on October 18 and 19.

The Summit was an enormous success! The entire SGWHC Board was present and involved. There were 145 in-person participants and 40 live-webinar participants representing 109 US and international medical schools (Canada Austria Germany Sweden Japan). In addition to the medical schools, there were 20 national organizations represented (student, professional, federal, and non-profit).  This was truly a collaborative effort.  We repeatedly heard from Summit participants that they were very enthusiastic about taking what they learned back to their medical schools.

The speakers were all outstanding! The agenda was designed not only to inform curriculum leaders in Sex and Gender Based Medicine, but also to highlight excellent educational tools and resources to assist educators in growing existing programs or in creating new programs.  The Workshops produced some very useful ideas:  Creation of Student Competencies in Gender Medicine in alliance with AAMC Standards; and Utilization of SGBM Resources in US Medical Schools: Overcoming Barriers to Achieve Action.

Well-known leaders in Sex and Gender Medicine participated in panel discussions. The long-awaited US Sex and Gender Medical Education Medical Student Survey sponsored by the Laura W. Bush Institute was presented by Dr. Marjorie Jenkins, a former SGWHC board member. The Summit sessions have video archives available through October 2016.  To access these videos, go to this LINK and use Code: 091885.

The Summit Proceedings will be published in a peer-reviewed journal.  In 2016, a working group of sex and gender experts will convene to develop competencies for medical education.  There are requests for a 2017 Summit to include Interprofessional Sex and Gender Education.

During the Summit, executive director Dr. Jan Werbinski unveiled the SGBM Physician Registry, and outlined the procedure that will allow physicians to self-designate as a SGBM Provider.  A link to the Registry is available on the SGWHC Home Page.  Any physician who successfully completes 10 hours of Continuing Medical Education in Sex Based Medicine (which includes the modules developed by the Laura Bush Institute or the NIH) can be listed in the SGBM Physician Registry as a provider who demonstrates a commitment to applying Sex and Gender evidence into their clinical practice.

In addition to the Registry, a creative Pub Med Search Tool that has been developed by the Laura Bush Institute was also announced. This tool facilitates searches of the MEDLINE database for SGBM specific literature and can be found under the Resources Tab at the Sex and Gender Health.org web page.

Our membership has increased by 87 members since September, no doubt boosted by the interest and success of the Summit.  We will continue to post interesting articles and update the SGWHC Blog, so please check the blog periodically, and as always, we welcome comments and suggestions.

The Sex and Gender Women’s Health Collaborative has been busy this month helping to plan and prepare for the Sex and Gender Medical Education Summit to be held on October 18-19 at Mayo Clinic Rochester.  Many of our board members are on the planning committee and SGWHC has donated over $5000 toward the effort.

Here are some of the exciting things about the Summit:

• Over 130 medical schools have registered and are  sending curriculum leaders
• Thirty-one states and 4 countries are represented
• A National Climate Survey showing what students think about SGBM  will be presented
• Numerous well-known speakers with SGBM expertise will be featured.  These include:
  • C. Noel Bairey-Merz of the Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center
  • Marianne Legato of the Foundation for Gender-Specific Medicine, and author of a comprehensive textbook of SGBMedicine.
  • Mary Ellen Gusic, Chief Medical Education Officer of the Association of American Medical Colleges
  • An international panel of SGBM experts discussing successes and barriers to instituting SGBM curricula
  • Representatives from FDA, HRSA, and NIH
  • Please visit  www.sgbmeducationsummit.com to see the full Program
• The conference will be streamed live, and SGWHC will disseminate that information to our members as soon as it is available.
• A summarizing ePublication will be created and published following the conference, and will be distributed to SGWHC members.

The SGWHC board has been working on the Sex and Gender Based Medicine Physician Registry.  With support from the Laura W. Bush Institute of Women’s Health, this registry will be produced and published on the www.sgwhc.org site.  It will list practitioners who have demonstrated a commitment to applying sex and gender evidence into their clinical practice, and have completed a certificate program which requires 10 hours of accredited sex and gender specific CME materials.  The CME modules will be accessible very soon under the CME tab of the Laura Bush website.

The SGWHC board has agreed upon a comprehensive definition of  SGBM for the FAQ sheet on the website:

“Sex and Gender Based Medicine is a field of medicine which incorporates information about how biological sex and the sociocultural aspects of gender affect health and illness for women and men.”

You can find the SGBM Physician Registry and the FAQ list on the website under PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION.

Midway into 2015, the Sex and Gender Women’s Health Collaborative continues to be active in our advocacy for a sex and gender approach to medical education and care.

Board Transitions

July saw two transitions of board members.  Dr. Marjorie Jenkins, of the Laura W. Bush Institute for Women’s Health has taken a one year sabbatical to apply her expertise in Sex and Gender Medicine at the FDA Office of Women’s Health.  Since this position requires her resignation from SGWHC, Connie Tyne, the new ED of the Laura Bush Institute, will be taking her place on the SGWHC Board of Directors.  In a similar transition, Martha Nolan, our representative from the Society for Women’s Health Research, has taken a position at the CDC.  She will be replaced on our board by Mary Hornig, CFO and COO for SWHR.  We warmly welcome both newcomers to the SGWHC Board.

Publications

Dr. Alyson McGregor and her SGWHC Scholarship Committee have taken on a huge task that will soon come to fruition.  Her team has searched the literature for resources and tools that will help researchers adopt a sex and gender lens when undertaking  projects.  The group analyzed these resources, and will be submitting a paper for publication which catalogs these resources and summarizes their merits.  The paper is entitled:  “How to Study the Impact of Sex and Gender in Medical Research: A Review of Resources.” Co-authors include Dr. Memoona Hasnain, Dr. Kathryn Sandberg, Dr. Mary Morrison, Dr. Michelle Berlin, and Dr. Justina Trott.

Dr. McGregor is also anticipating a 2016 publication of her textbook, “Sex and Gender in Acute Care Medicine,” which she co-authored with colleagues at Brown University and others across the country.

iGiant Health Roundtable

Several SGWHC board members participated in the iGiant Roundtable discussions held July 15 and 16 in Washington DC.  The Roundtable was sponsored by the Office of Women’s Health of the US Department of Health and Human Services, and was led by Saralyn Mark of Solamed Solutions. Dr. Mark is a long-time advocate of women’s health issues.  SGWHC was represented by Dr. Michelle Berlin, who presented our projects to the group.  Other board members who  participated were Dr. Kim Templeton, representing the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons; Dr. Alyson McGregor, representing Brown University; Dr. Marjorie Jenkins, representing the FDA Office of Women’s Health; Connie Tyne, representing the Laura W. Bush Institute of Women’s Health; and our founding partner, the Society for Women’s Health Research, represented by President and CEO, Phyllis Greenberger.

Verizon Grant

Verizon recently honored SGWHC with a $3,000.00 grant in appreciation for a presentation which Dr. Janice Werbinski gave at their annual meeting of women executives in Charlotte, North Carolina.  Dr. Werbinski’s presentation addressed the need for a sex and gender perspective in medical care in addition to gender differences in corporations, and how to recognize them.  The talk was well received by the group, and SGWHC thanks the Verizon grantors.

SGBM Education Summit

SGWHC continues to work on the Planning Committee for the Sex and Gender Based Medical Education Summit to be held at Mayo Clinic on October 18-19, 2015.  Sixty-two medical schools have now confirmed attendance by a curriculum representative.  Several federal offices of women’s health have the conference on their calendars, and three international speakers have confirmed participation on the panel.  These are:  Karolina Kublickiene, MD, PhD of the Karolinska Instituet in Sweden, Vera Regitz-Zagrosek, MD, of Charite University in Berlin, Germany, and Dr. Gillian Einstein of the Canadian Institute of Gender and Health

We continue to search for event sponsors.  If you are interested in sponsoring, you can find the levels of sponsorship and its benefits on the SGBMeduCation Summit Page:

Articles posted at the SGWHC.org site this month encompass gender differences in cannabis use, COPD, and response to HIV medications.  Visit the Blog for more interesting data

As 2015 progresses, SGWHC has been quite active.

May 15 was the day of the Media Blitz in support of the Research for All Act. The Blitz was organized with our founding partner, the Society for Women’s Health Research, and Hadassah. The Research 4 All Act, was Re-introduced May 5, 2015 by Rep. Cooper (D-TN) and Loomis (R-WYO). This act would ensure that:

• Animal research include both sexes when appropriate
• All drugs expedited by FDA must be tested on both men and women and must show safety in women.

SGWHC wholeheartedly supports passage of this act, and sees it as an important first step in the long trek toward achieving equity in tax-sponsored research.

Learn more about the Research4All Act.

SGWHC Board Chair, Dr. Kim Templeton worked tirelessly at the annual AMA meeting to introduce a resolution with the potential of creating a focus on sex and gender specific medicine, rather than women’s health and men’s health as separate disciplines. The RESOLVED SECTION of the Resolution is here:

RESOLVED, that future discussion within our AMA of topics labeled as “women’s health” reflect this more accurate and inclusive definition; and be it further

RESOLVED, that our AMA encourage members to incorporate information regarding the impact of sex and gender into their daily practices.

The resolution was not passed, but rather was referred to the AMA board for study. This will require that the board study the pros and cons of sex and gender based medicine. They will come back with a recommendation on the resolution next year. All of us who believe that we need to infuse sex and gender medicine into the curriculum will be diligently watching this process.

With the leadership of Dr. Templeton and her work through the AMA Women Physicians Section, SGWHC has submitted a proposal for an educational session at the 2015 Change Med Ed Conference October 1-2. This conference is designed to “drive the creation of the medical school of the future.” Among other things, our proposal is focused on “Identifying present and future needs in closing sex and gender gaps in medical education.” Drs. Templeton, Jenkins, and Werbinski have volunteered to be on the panel for this session, titled: “Moving Past One-Sex Medicine: Developing Medical Education Programs Through a Sex and Gender Lens.” More information about the conference, HERE.

Executive Director, Jan Werbinski was traveling again in May, presenting our cause to a meeting of Verizon women executives. It’s amazing how gender differences exist throughout our culture – even in corporate America.

Dr. Marjorie Jenkins, our Vice Chair, will be taking a one year hiatus from the SGWHC board, as she assumes her new role at the FDA Office of Women’s Health. She will be director of medical initiatives and policy advancement there.

Articles posted this month cover gender differences in cardiovascular medications, stroke presentation, alcoholism, HPV-associated head and neck cancer, and end-of-life care in terminal cancer patients.

Please be sure to visit our Website and  and Facebook page for to keep up with us!

April was a busy month for SGWHC. We showcased our new poster at several Women’s Health conferences, including the American Medical Women’s Association Centennial Meeting, and the 23d Annual Congress of Women’s Health. Our poster took first prize at the Congress! Thanks to Dr. Michelle Berlin and Dr. Virginia Miller for displaying it there for us.

Dr. Alyson McGregor is featured in the May 2015 issue of Rhode Island Monthly, in an article entitled, “Sex Matters.” She takes us through her training and discovery of the importance of studying sex and gender differences in Emergency Medicine, as well as in all disciplines. Dr. McGregor is also leading a SGWHC project through the Scholarship Committee. They are writing an article for doctors and researchers which will highlight tools and shortcuts when publishing articles regarding gender differences.

We continue to partner with the Laura Bush Women’s Health Institute at Texas Tech. Together, we are developing curricular tools and online courses which will help students and practitioners learn the many sex and gender differences they need to know when taking care of patients. Those who master the knowledge in the modules will earn a certificate and be listed in a National Practitioner Database of Sex and Gender Medicine on the SGWHC website! Stay tuned for more information as the modules are produced.

Coming up in May, SGWHC is partnering with the Society for Women’s Health Research in their support of the “Research 4 All” Act. On April 29, Rep. Jim Cooper(D-TN) and Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) reintroduced the Research for All Act. In addition to requiring NIH to study female subjects and analyze sex differences in basic research, Cooper’s bill directs the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to guarantee that clinical drug trials for expedited drug products are sufficient to determine safety and effectiveness for both men and women.

As always, please don’t miss the new articles posted on the www.sgwhc.org site this month. Topics range from:

• Sex differences in concussion (women may take much longer to recover memory)
• Morality decisions (women are less likely to say they could go back in time and kill Hitler to prevent the mayhem he caused)
• Addiction progression (women progress from casual use to addiction much more rapidly).
• A provocative rat study from the University of Maryland which found that the “default” fetal mammalian brain is female unless exposed to testosterone during a sensitive period of development.

Interest in gender differences in medicine and learning is spreading around the globe. Entire issues of journals are now devoting attention to this important variable. The entire February issue of Current Eye Research, edited by Dr. Alvin Eisner, is devoted to gender differences in ophthalmology. And the issue of Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes also contains several articles on those differences in cardiology. Not only that, but many popular blogs and twitter feeds also focus on them. SGWHC applauds those forward-thinking editors who are bringing science into the twenty-first century. Even if editors don’t have sex and gender stratified research at the ready, it would at least be more precise to simply comment on each article as to how many subjects of the opposite sex were included, and if any variations were noticed.

Our articles this month range from the excellent collection of gender specific research in ophthalmology and cardiology to the more lighthearted article about the relation of men’s finger length to their personality, and therefore possibly to their “marriagability.”

And our March newsletter wouldn’t be complete without mention of the work that the SGWHC board is doing in collaboration with several universities and organizations surrounding our mission to “Integrate sex and gender knowledge into medical education and practice.” The plans for our 2015 Sex and Gender Based Medicine Education Summiton October 18-19 are moving forward swiftly. The Summit’s Premiere Sponsors are the American Medical Women’s Association, the Laura W. Bush Institute for Women’s Health, Mayo Clinic, and the Society for Women’s Health Research. The goal for this Summit is the establishment or adoption of dedicated sex and gender education curriculum in all medical schools within the next 5 years.

Curriculum leaders from over 140 medical schools in the United States and Canada will be invited to participate. The Summit has received early endorsement from 14 schools, including Harvard, Duke, and Mayo, and each has committed to send a curriculum representative. Speakers are being identified, and Dr. Mary Ellen Gusic, chief medical education officer of the American Association of Medical Colleges will present a keynote. We are continuing to look for supporters, so see the SGBM Summit Website to find ways to help move this forward.

SGWHC board members will have poster presentations at the American Medical Women’s Association Centennial meeting, the Congress of Women’s Health and (tentatively) the North American Menopause Society this year, so please stop by and see us and play our electronic “Wheel of Differences” game.

February was another great month for SGWHC. Alyson McGregor, MD, one of our founding board members, performed a brilliant TEDx Talk in Rhode Island, Sex Matters in Emergency Medicine. It superbly captures our idea of a long-overdue vision for healthcare. It will be of great interest to our members, and it can also be used to help promote our mission when we speak of SGWHC to others. This TEDx Talk can also be located on our home page. Please take 15 minutes to listen to this presentation.

While you are on our home page , also check out the hilarious Comedy Central Colbert Report video. This 4-minute commentary focuses on the recent decision of NIH to require that animal research data be stratified and reported according to sex. Steven Colbert, as always, takes serious data and translates it into humorous, easy to understand language.
Once you are energized with this information, don’t miss the the blog (link) that Dr. McGregor wrote in conjunction with the TED talk.

Also check out the new articles posted in February. Research done at Penn State suggests that there is a good reason that autism is more common in boys, and Alzheimer’s is more common in women. They discovered a mutation in a neuroprotein which is designed to protect boys from autism, and enhance memory in women. The mutation causes a breakdown in these protections, leading to neurologic disease.

Explore gender differences which associate personality traits with predilection for spicy foods. Researchers propose that women who like spicy foods like them intrinsically, because they taste better to them; but men eat spicy foods more for the external “machismo” characterization that others bestow on them for enduring the burn.

Make sure to follow us on social media via the icons below.

The SGWHC’s poster presentation was accepted for the 23^th Annual Congress of Women’s Health, to be held April 16-19 at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, DC. so stop by to play our “Wheel of Differences” game and test your knowledge of sex and gender differences.

Speaking of poster presentations, don’t forget that the American Medical Women’s Association is celebrating their 100^th Centennial Year at their annual conference next April 23-26 at the Palmer House in Chicago. AMWA was the first founder of our women’s health education project. SGWHC will be hosting an exhibit table at the Centennial celebration!

Happy Holiday season to all!

Make sure that you “Like” us on Facebook, “Follow” us on Twitter and Connect with us on LinkedIN

The SGWHC articles posted in October are quite timely. We share two articles about sex and gender differences in Ebola. One shows that women account for almost 75% of the deceased in the current epidemic in Western Africa. And two of the three largest historical outbreaks occurred in maternity settings. Does the virus prefer to infect women? No, the explanation lies in the gender aspect: the majority of the caregivers of the sick are women, and therefore women are more likely to be exposed.  This is truly an example of a gender difference.

A second article, from a 2013 article in Science of Translational Medicine, showed that some of our common FDA-approved SERM medications (Selective Estrogen Receptor Modulators) were able to inhibit the growth of Ebola virus in infected mice. The effective drugs were Clomiphene citrate, Progesterone, and Toremifene. In the Clomiphene (Clomid) cohort, there was 90% survival! Who would have thought to try a fertility drug to kill viruses?

In addition to the posted articles, be sure to look at our sgwhc.org home page for a list of upcoming conferences which will be appealing to those interested in sex and gender differences.  You will find links there to the Association of American Medical Colleges Annual Meeting, and of course the 23^rd Annual Congress of Women’s Health from April 16-19, 2015.

SGWHC will be collaborating with Mayo Clinic, the Laura W. Bush Institute of Women’s Health, and the American Medical Women’s Association in October of 2015 for a Summit on Sex and Gender Based Medicine. Curriculum leaders of U.S. Medical Schools will be invited to participate in this Summit and start the conversation to add SGBM to the curriculum. More information on that later.

And we would like to apprise our subscribers of a new app from the North American Menopause Society called MenoPro.

MenoPro can be downloaded on mobile phones or tablet devices and it will help clinicians and patients work together to personalize treatment decisions as they traverse menopause. SGWHC applauds NAMS for including a woman-specific 10-year cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk calculator, and links to risk scores for assessment of breast cancer and osteoporotic fracture.

Again, be sure to like us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn so you can see our newest articles as soon as they are posted on www.sgwhc.org.

This month’s SGWHC newsletter brings you more interesting information on the latest tools and research which focus on sex and gender differences.

The Karolinska Institute in Sweden published a new search tool which allows us to find sex and gender differences in side effects of FDA approved medications. We have placed a link to that tool on our home page.

We have also posted abstracts to several recent journal articles: One explores the phenomenon discovered by an astute anesthesiologist when he was investigating non-hormonal ways to control hot flashes in a breast cancer survivor. Who would have thought that injecting the stellate ganglion in the neck with local anesthetic would alleviate the severity and frequency of vasomotor symptoms?

Make sure to head over to SGWHC to check out some other informational articles covering a variety of topics, from sex differences in car crashes to how BPA can affect fertility in men. There is even a great link to the announcement by the NIH to invest $10.1 million toward including more gender specific outcomes in research.

If you are interested in receiving updates from SGWHC when we add new materials, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. We welcome your comments, and ask that if you know of any interesting articles which delineate sex and gender differences, please send them to: execdirector@sgwhc.org. Make sure to share our site with your colleagues and students.

It’s been a busy summer for the SGWHC team! Recently, both the NIH Office of Women’s Health and the FDA have been paying close attention to the need to stratify studies by sex, and pay attention to sex differences in pharmaceuticals. And we applaud them for their timely insight. Scanning recent literature shows that sex and gender differences are being reported more often in medical research, so we have more and more articles to post on to SGWHC. This month, we have posted many articles that might be of interest to our subscribers.

The Case for Sex and Gender-Specific Medicine is an invited summary article on sex differences in Cardiology by two of the most respected voices in the field, Noel Bairey-Merz, MD and Vera Regitz-Zagrosek, MD. An interesting case presentation about Traumatic Brain Injury in women by Emily Gudbranson and Esther Choo, MD MPH postulates that Progesterone might be the reason that women recover from TBI more rapidly than men. Statin Drug Lawsuits spotlights the FDA label change on statins, noting the need to screen for diabetes in those taking these cholesterol lowering drugs.

Make sure to head over to SGWHC to check out some other informational articles covering a variety of topics from preventive aspirin use to depression in opposite sex twins. Make sure to also use the icons below to keep up with us on Social Media.