American Medical Women's Association Marches for Healthcare Reform in Washington DC on March 22, 2010

Physicians, nurses, medical students, other health professionals, and reform activists from across the country will gather in Washington DC and march to Capitol Hill to demand comprehensive reform for our nation’s broken health care system on Monday, March 22, 2010.

Timed to coincide with the most critical moment in the push for national health care reform, hundreds of health professionals from more than a dozen associations with a collective memberships in the hundreds of thousands will declare their support for reform on behalf of those who know the nation’s health care system best – doctors, nurses, and patients.

WHO:             Hundreds of Health Professionals

WHAT:           Health Professionals March for Reform

WHEN:

11: 00 am --Rally at Freedom Plaza             

11: 30 am –March to Capitol Hill down Pennsylvania Avenue

1: 00 pm –  Media Conference with Congressional Leaders in Hart Senate Office Building #216 

Participating groups include: American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Family Physicians, American College of Physicians, American Medical Student Association, American Medical Women's Association, American Muslim Health Professionals, Associate of Clinicians for the Underserved, Committee of Interns and Residents/SEIU Healthcare, Doctors Council SEIU, Doctors for America, HIV Medicine Association, National Medical Association, National Physicians Alliance, National Physicians Alliance – New York, National Doctors Alliance/SEIU Healthcare,  Nurse Alliance/SEIU Healthcare, Student National Medical Association, United Nurses of America-AFSCME.  For more information, go to www.healthmarch.org

About AMWA

AMWA is “The Vision and Voice of Women in Medicine.”  As the nation’s oldest multi-specialty organization for women in medicine, AMWA was founded in 1915, at a time when the percent of women physicians declined from 10% in the late 1800's to 6% in 1915.  For the next nearly 60 years, the percent of women medical graduates remained the same.  It was not until passage of Title IX of the 1972 Civil Rights Act that women began to make huge strides towards parity.  From that point on, from 1969 to 2008, the percent of women in medical school increased from 6% to 48.8% and the percent of women in the medical profession increased from 7.6% to 28.9%.