The American Medical Women's Association (AMWA) uses the services of the Medical Student Press to publish winning and honorably mentioned submissions to the Linda Brodsky Essay Award.

Dr. Linda Brodsky was a pediatric otolaryngologist in Buffalo, NY and a lifetime member of AMWA. She had been a role model and mentor to many physicians throughout her career. In 2000, she became an activist for fair treatment of women physicians, after winning a lawsuit against her university and local hospital for pay discrimination. Through her business, WomenMDResources, she helped women physicians “get the jobs they want, the pay they deserve, and not become prisoners of their careers.†She was co-chair of the AMWA Gender Equity Task Force with Dr. Gebhard in 2013, but passed away unexpectedly in February of 2014. 

The 2020-2021 prompt:

2020 has been a challenging year. Please reflect on your experience by answering one of the two prompts:

  1. COVID-19 has an ongoing impact on the socioeconomic and physical health of not only patients, but also providers. The pandemic has also made health care disparities more apparent. What are your personal reflections on the pandemic as it pertains to medicine and what are the lessons you have learned this past year? 
  2. The loss of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Jacob Blake, and numerous other innocent Black lives to police brutality is tragic. Students, particularly our Black student members, have been expected to continue their clinical and academic duties while attempting to process these traumatic events and while living in fear for their own lives as well as the lives of their loved ones. Racism is wide spread and we, in medicine, are not immune. How do you plan to continue the antiracism dialogue and how will you combat racism as a future physician?

The winner of the AMWA Linda Brodsky MD Essay Award for 2020-2021 is Tiffany Ramos. Congratulations!

Published: 2021-09-01