Women in Leadership Interest Group

  2016 saw the confluence of female leaders at IAFP and AAFP: Alvia Siddiqi, MD as IAFP’s President and Wanda Filer, MD as AAFP’s President. Javette Orgain, MD as AAFP’s Speaker. Evelyn Lewis&Clark, MD was the AAFP Foundation Board President. To build upon this synergy, IAFP launched a member interest group, Women In Leadership (WIL) whose charge is to:

• Encourage female physicians to participate at all levels of leadership. 
• Offer opportunities for mentoring, personal and professional development through education and other programming. 
• Use the WIL group to plan events, select topics, contribute resources and provide support as possible mentors and active participants.

Through our existing women leaders, partnering with like-minded organizations focused on female leaders and executives, we can create a place for WIL members to leverage their professional development and make true progress. We hope to achieve this by providing and developing leadership, advocacy, education, expertise, mentoring, and strategic alliances. Some examples of other organizations:

American Medical Women's Association
AAMC
Healthcare Businesswoman’s Association

WIL is co-chaired by Janice Benson, MD, (University of Chicago/NorthShore Family Medicine Residency) and Emma Daisy, MD (Heartland Health Center in Chicago and member of the IAFP board of directors). Their first event focused on boosting women in their contract negotiations. Materials from the event are available online at the WIL Community Forum. This forum will also play host to an online library of resources, articles for professional development, and future topics as learning modules.  

2018 activities

• A webinar on wellness/burnout by Kristina Dakis, MD,
• Kathleen Mueller, MD of the Connecticut AFP presented ‘Joy in Medicine' live in Chicago and Gibson City (also broadcasted as a webinar).
• A dinner meeting with Kathleen Mueller, MD as the speaker in Chicago June 14
• A webinar on ‘teaming in practice’. Lucy Zielinski of Lumina Health Partners 
• IAFP’s annual meeting is Fri., Oct. 26, at Elmhurst Hospital, the WIL hosted educational pre-conference as well as a networking event.

How to join the WIL Community Forum. Make sure you are logged into the IAFP web site at Member Login in the upper right corner (your user name is your last name and password is your AAFP ID, if you’ve never logged in before) then click on the Community Forums option under the Membership tab or click here. You’ll see all the forums offered by IAFP, and the Women in Leadership Forum is one of them. Click on the title to see what’s been shared, and post comments of your own. You can even attach documents to share. Only IAFP members have access to community forums.

If you are interested in WIL or have information and resources you would like to offer for the WIL’s consideration, please contact Gordana Krkic, CAE at [email protected].  IAFP members may also join the WIL e-mail list by logging into your profile, then clicking on My Features - then E-lists and select the Women in Leadership e-list. 

Our Academy policies support women in family medicine:
The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) confirms its policies on women in family medicine by encouraging women to: (a) continue to enter the specialty of family medicine; (b) participate actively in all AAFP programs and activities, and (c) participate at all levels of leadership, thus ensuring that the personal and professional development of women family physicians is addressed. The AAFP and its constituent chapters strive for proportionate representation for women in leadership roles in the AAFP.

The AAFP further recommends that academic health centers, and professional societies for physicians, have programs of leadership development both for minority and women physicians, and medical students. These programs should include mentorship opportunities. Current and expanded efforts to increase the training of minorities and women in medical research should be supported.