About Us

Women Physicians of APPNA or WAPPNA is an organization formed by women physician members of APPNA for the purpose of empowering women and children. WAPPNA ( Women Physicians of APPNA ) was formally approved as an auxiliary organization of APPNA with its own unique charter, mission statement, constitution and bylaws and Executive Council. This took place in the Spring meeting of APPNA in 2008 in Dallas. It is a secular organization which opens its doors to all women physicians of Pakistani descent regardless of color, religion and other orientation. WAPPNA has its own tax ID # and tax exempt status. The main purpose of this organization is as follows:

1. Provide a forum for North American women physicians of Pakistani descent to network professionally and socially.

2. Identify, initiate and carry out projects for the social and economic betterment of women and children in Pakistan and North America.

3. Hold meetings coinciding with the APPNA meetings to discuss the various social, medical and economic issues faced by women and children of the world.

Wappna was founded by women physicians who are lifetime members of Appna. The founding members were asked invariably about the need for establishing Wappna when Appna had already been founded many years ago. The answer was that Appna has its long list of achievments and they have done incredible work over the years. Wappna wanted to focus mostly on under served women and children as our focus was narrow and being a new entity we wanted to do what we aimed to achieve with limited resources. Initially Wappna faced a fair amount of push back and was not getting the recognition it needed. But now it is recognized as a viable entity that people want to align themselves with. Wappna is here to help anybody and everybody within our limitations. The founding members are Naheed Chaudhry, Sarwat Iqbal, Humeraa Qamar and Shaheen Mian. We banded together to form Wappna as we realized that our goal was similar and aspirations the same. We continued to form the Executive Commitee and run the day to day functioning of the organization. As we added more members we were able to assign responsibility accordingly. We were pleasantly surprised to see that there are many members who share the same passion to provide care to the needy and at the same time develop women empowerment. We will work towards getting appropriate representation of women physicians in leadership roles within Appna. Wappna is a formidable platform and the more members we have the stronger the organization will get. We invite all women physicians looking to develop their skills in leadership roles and provide philanthropy to join us. We welcome you.