Christi Brown Elected Region 6 Director for AMWA’s Medical Student Division

Congratulations to Christi Brown, third year Rush Medical College student, on her selection as director of region 6 of the American Medical Women's Association (AMWA) Medical Student Division. In this leadership role, Brown will oversee communications and event planning for AMWA’s medical student chapters in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio for the 2020-21 academic year.

Brown knew it would be important to build relationships with mentors early in her medical school career. “When I came to Rush two years ago, I wasn’t sure what specialty I wanted to go into. I thought joining AMWA would be a good opportunity to connect with women from a various medical specialties to get a broad perspective of being a woman in medicine.”

As a member of AMWA, Brown has had many networking opportunities with women in medicine in Chicago and around the country. Last year she attended the AMWA/MWIA (Medical Women’s International Association) conference in New York City where she presented research on the gender gap in tourniquet application techniques with her classmates and fellow AMWA co-presidents Eleanor Clifford and Annie Guedikian. “Attending the conference was a valuable experience, meeting inspirational women from all around the world,” Brown says.

Building new relationships can be a daunting challenge when we are all spending more time social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but Brown has already implemented several strategies to ensure that she is fostering stronger connections between the chapters across her assigned AMWA region.

“My goal this year is to make region 6 feel more connected to the national AMWA and to each other,” she explained. “I established a new programming committee that is creating virtual workshops focused on a variety of topics including running an AMWA chapter on campus, recruiting and retaining members and planning successful events. We are also beginning to coordinate fundraisers and virtual networking events.”

In her role as regional director, she is also responsible for planning the region’s annual conference. To ensure that the event had the biggest impact possible, she partnered with the Women in Medicine Summit, which will host its virtual conference this October.

“AMWA was the first organization I joined when I came to Rush,” Brown says. “My experience has connected me with some amazing female physicians from Rush and across the country. It has shaped the type of physician I want to become. I am excited to continue working with AMWA this year in my new role!”