2024 NETWORKING BREAKFAST & DIVERSITY PANEL

Honoring Tradition, Celebrating Progress

Monday, October 21 from 7:00am-9:00am | San Francisco Marriott Marquis Ballroom AB
All surgeons, residents, students, and community partners welcome!

RSVP HERE

You're Invited!

In honor of the founding of AWS, women surgeons, surgeons-in-training, AWS partners, and allies continue to gather for a networking breakfast each year. With the generous support of our long-time partner, Stryker, we invite all interested individuals to join us and connect over a delicious meal, share their experiences, and discuss potential solutions for equity in the future of surgery. AWS partners from the Association for Academic Surgery (AAS), Association of Out Surgeons and Allies (AOSA), Latino Surgical Society (LSS), Society of Asian Academic Surgeons (SAAS), and Society of Black Academic Surgeons (SBAS) will share updates from their organizations in a Diversity Panel, 

The 2024 AWS Networking Breakfast will take place at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis in Ballroom AB on Monday, October 21 from 7:00-9:00am PT.  This event is free and open to anyone interested in networking with members of AWS and its community partners. Please RSVP here to attend. We look forward to seeing you!

AWS wishes to recognize and thank Stryker for their monetary commercial support of this event.

RSVP for the 2024 Networking Breakfast


An Organization Founded Over Breakfast

The Association of Women Surgeons (AWS) was founded in 1981 when Patricia Numann, MD, FACS, invited as many female surgeons as she could identify to breakfast at the October meeting of the American College of Surgeons. Sharing many common experiences, interests, and concerns, these women decided to meet annually on an informal basis. For the next few years, the first significant contact that many female residents or newly practicing female surgeons had with more professionally advanced surgical women was through these morning breakfasts at the American College of Surgeons’ fall meeting.

Attendance grew each year until it became apparent that the group needed a more formal structure to address their common professional concerns. AWS was thus incorporated five years later in 1986. In 1988, Tamar Earnest, MD, FACS, led an energetic membership campaign which brought the total number of female surgeons in the organization to nearly one thousand. To increase communication among the members, a quarterly newsletter and an annual professional development program were inaugurated at the fall meeting of the American College of Surgeons in 1989. As a result, it became apparent that the organization needed to consider its future direction within the surgical community. The first strategic planning session was held in 1991, resulting in the mission statement we retain today and strategies relating to four specific goals. Two of these strategies, namely the annual Fall AWS meeting for professional development and a governor position for an AWS representative in the American College of Surgeons, were accomplished in 1989 and 1995, respectively. Today AWS is truly an international organization with members in more than 40 countries.

Tradition Continues with the Support of our Partners 

Thank you to Stryker for generously sponsoring the AWS Networking Breakfast. Your support enables women in surgery to continue to build and grow long-lasting relationships throughout their careers!