American Medical Women’s Association

American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA), professional and advocacy organization that serves as a vehicle for protecting the interests and advancing the careers of female physicians. The association is also committed to serving female medical students. It has a membership of some 10,000 and operates at the national, state, and local levels.

What is now the American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA) was founded in Chicago as the Medical Women’s National Association by obstetrical surgeon Bertha Van Hoosen in 1915, when female physicians were far outnumbered by their male counterparts. In its earliest years, the association fought for broader representation of female physicians in all areas of the medical profession, including for the right to practice in the military medical corps during World War I. From that struggle emerged the American Women’s Hospital Service (AWHS), which, by the end of the war in 1918, had organized voluntary medical relief primarily in France and Greece, and then in many other countries in the following years. The AWHS continued to operate into the 21st century. Women were not able to gain admission into the military’s medical reserves until 1943. The AMWA also actively supported the passage of the Sheppard-Towner Act of 1921, which, until 1929, provided federally funded prenatal, maternal, and child health care. During the 1960s and ’70s the AMWA worked to increase the number of women who pursued careers in medicine and who would be accepted into American medical schools.

Throughout its history and into the 21st century, the AMWA advocated for the interests of women in general and of female physicians in particular and has influenced legislation on issues of women’s health. In 2005, for instance, recognizing the importance of sex education in protecting young people from sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and unwanted pregnancies, AMWA joined other advocates, including Planned Parenthood, the National Women’s Law Center, and the Guttmacher Institute (an organization dedicated to advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights) in calling for review of the abstinence-only curricula mandated in American schools under Republican leaders since Ronald Reagan at an annual cost of more than $100 million. Advocacy efforts also centred on health care coverage for all Americans, health care system reform, elder care, dependent care, Medicaid reform, and reproductive health.

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The organization worked to educate the public about issues relevant to women’s health, focusing on the health of menopausal women, for example, to shed greater light on the issue of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) when a 2004 study indicated that health providers and women were still confused about the advisability of using HRT, which had been linked to breast cancer.

AMWA’s research interests included those issues that affect women differently than men as well as those that predominately affect females. Among the former, smoking prevention and cessation, alcoholism, osteoporosis, and heart disease were of greatest concern. Among the latter, major research areas included violence against women (see domestic violence), human sex trafficking (see human trafficking), gender equity, breast cancer, reproductive health, and cervical cancer prevention.