Spotlight On... University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

Neelima Navuluri, UTHSCSA Branch Co-President, and Jennifer Saenz, Region 5 Director

Upon hearing Dr. Renu Weiss, a University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSCSA) alumna, speak last fall about her role at The Banyan, a global nonprofit organization, the women of the UTHSCSA AMWA branch found themselves inspired by her work and her passion and started to explore options to experience some small part of it. The Banyan is an organization based in Chennai, India that helps rehabilitate homeless women with mental illnesses and provides a variety of different resources to help them become independent. UTHSCSA AMWA's goal became to create a sustainable project in collaboration with The Banyan that provides UTHSCSA students the unique opportunity to shadow an alumna and serve a vulnerable community of women in India. A group of four UTHSCSA AMWA members are now in the process of planning their first trip to The Banyan in December 2011 for approximately two weeks. They will spend half their time in clinic with Dr. Weiss and the other half working on projects, implementing a fundraiser, reflecting on their experiences, and exploring options for the sustainability of this project. They will be fundraising throughout the year to help raise money for The Banyan and for travel expenses. They have kicked off this year's fundraising with a summer t-shirt sale and are planning more fun and creative events for the fall. The t-shirts cost $15 each and all proceeds go toward The Banyan project; contact Neelima Navuluri at neelima.navuluri@gmail.com if you're interested in purchasing one or with support, advice, for questions.

Images: (top) the women of UTHSCSA AMWA, (bottom left) UTHSCSA AMWA co-presidents Neelima Navuluri and Allyson Lemay, (bottom right) UTHSCSA t-shirt fundraiser for The Banyan.

AMWA Advocates for Health Policy
Adrienne Clark, National AMWA Student President

Are you passionate about health policy? So is AMWA! AMWA sponsors or signs on to statements, letters, and legal briefs every week. We endorse the efforts of organizations such as Futures Without Violence, the National Women's Law Center, and Planned Parenthood as they are happening and in ways that signify meaningful support.

On July 3, we signed onto a statement generated by the National Women's Law Center to the Centers for Medicare applauding CMS's attempts to ensure that Medicaid beneficiaries -- most of whom are women -- have access to critical care. These proposed regulations, as written, take an important first step in addressing access issues. By expanding their reach to managed care organizations, requiring that data be analyzed and reported out by the gender and other characteristics of beneficiaries, the final regulations could be an even stronger way of ensuring access to care. Issues of access to care are particularly important to women who constitute a majority of Medicaid beneficiaries and those likely to care for beneficiaries.

We appreciated the opportunity to comment on the Proposed Rule entitled "Medicaid Program: Methods for Assuring Access to Covered Medicaid Services," published in the Federal Register on May 6, 2011 (76 Fed. Reg. 26342).[1] The proposed rule would create a process for states to use to evaluate their fee for service Medicaid provider payment rates to determine whether such rates provide "equal access" to services through Medicaid under Section 1902(a)(30)(A) of the Social Security Act (hereinafter Section 30(A)).

Read more about AMWA's other endorsements at here. AMWA is a vibrant advocacy organization, and we encourage student members to be a part of our efforts!

Remember to Update Your AMWA Portal Account to Continue Receiving AMWA Membership Benefits
Message from the National AMWA Executive Committee

To better serve you, we have created a new members-only section of our website. If you have not yet logged into our website, please log in now to make sure that your membership information, particularly your graduation date, is correct.

We want to make sure you can take advantage of national, regional, and local events and opportunities and apply for student-only grants and scholarships!

To log into the AMWA Members Only site:

Please visit the AMWA Member’s Only site. Under the Don’t Have an Account Yet? heading, select Sign Up for an Individual Account.
Input your email address, first name, and last name as prompted and select “Create an Account”
Your last name, first name, city and email (if available) should display; select the result that details your information. Select continue and move on to step 4. If you do not see your name, skip to step 6.
An e-mail will be sent to you with “Update Account” in the subject line. Once you have updated your password, you will be taken to the main page of the portal. Take a moment to review your record to ensure all contact information is up to date.
If you do not see your name listed as noted in step 3, select “None of these individuals are me. Complete the requested information paying close attention to the required fields, indicated by a red asterisk.
Select View My Membership Profile. If there are no records to display, this means that you are not in our system as a member. If you believe this is an error, email associatedirector@amwa-student.org. To join AMWA, go back to the main portal screen and select Join/Renew My Membership.

To update your graduation date:

Selected View My Membership Profile
Under the heading of What would you like to do?, select Edit Demographics
Update information as appropriate
Select confirm.

AMWA Accolades

We recognize and congratulate the amazing accomplishments of these AMWA members and branches across the country, and we'd love to share yours! Email AMWA Secretary Lauren Wolchok to be included.

National Student AMWA Past President, Misty Richards, was recently featured on NBC's TODAY Show. Watch the clip!