Women's Health Projects in a Box
Towards Equity & Empowerment in Medicine & Women's Health
Women’s Health Activism by-the-day Calendar
This year's Women's Grassroots Initiative is a "Womens' Health Activism By-the-Day Calendar", which will focus on bringing focused programming and awareness to the most universally recognized issues in women's health today--by taking advantage of days already in place. Calendar events such as Love Your Body week and Breast Cancer Awareness Month (October), World Aids Day (December) the anniversary of Roe v. Wade (January) and Women's Heart Health Awareness (February) will be spotlighted with easy-to-implement programming at any medical school. However, these topics may be tailored to fit the needs of students at local chapters, by supplementing with video, powerpoint, handouts, etc.
For more information contact Jocelyn Fitzgerald at womens.grassroots@amsa.org.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month
One in eight women will get breast cancer in her lifetime, and the American Cancer Society estimates that each year, about 2000 new cases of invasive breast cancer are diagnosed in men. Most of us know someone who has been diagnosed with breast cancer, some of us may be patients ourselves and others may have a worrisome family history of breast disease.
Project in A Box:
Sex-Based Biology and Sex in Clinical Research
This new project in a box is a portable two-lecture series that provides an introduction to the principles of biological and non-biological influences on sex differences in medicine. These presentations address the following questions: what is "sex-based biology?" How does sex influence genetics, physiology, and pathophysiology? What non-biological influences impact sex differences in clinical research findings? And finally, What are some of the hallmark clinical studies that show key differences in outcomes between the men and women? The project will include two hour-long powerpoint presentations, comprehensive presentation notes, and a short, well-designed pre and post-test survey covering basic content to assess knowledge before and after the presentations. While optimally incorporated into standardized first or second-year medical school curricula, these can also be used as adjunct educational experiences in the form of lunchtime or dinnertime talks!
For more information contact Margaret May Reynolds at womens.education@amsa.org.
Wear Red Day
Heart disease is the number one killer of American women, claiming the lives of 460,000 women every year at the rate of 1 per second. Join the American Heart Association's National Wear Red Day on February 6, 2009. Sign up and download a toolkit.