Willarda V. Edwards, M.D., MBA
President

Willarda V. Edwards, M.D., MBA, is a managing partner and internist at Edwards & Stephens in Baltimore, is the 110th president of the National Medical Association. With nearly 20 years of service in the National Medical Association, Dr. Edwards has served on the Board of Trustees in numerous capacities, including Chair of the Board and Treasurer.  As President-elect, she chaired the Board’s Health Policy Committee which oversees the development and the implementation of the Association’s health policy agenda. 

Dr. Edwards has held national offices in both the National Medical Association and American Medical Association (AMA). In 1995, she became the first physician to serve concurrently as president of both local medical societies. Currently an AMA delegate from Maryland, she has served as chair of the AMA Women Physicians Congress. She has also served as national director of the NAACP’s Health Advocacy Division, and president and chief operating officer of the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America, Inc.

An internist in private practice since 1984, Dr. Edwards received her medical degree from the University of Maryland School of Medicine and holds a Masters in Business Administration from Loyola College of Baltimore. Early in her medical career she had a four-year tour of duty at Bethesda Naval Hospital and the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, where she was promoted as chief of the Internal Medicine Department. Dr. Edwards retired from the Navy Reserves after 24 years of service.

Dr. Edwards has served on several governor-appointed commissions and task forces, including the Maryland High Blood Pressure Commission and the state’s Health Services Cost Review Commission (HSCRC), where she was Commissioner for eight years. Her task force experience includes work on the Maryland insurance appeals and grievances process, graduate medical education, and the task force on small group insurance. Her administrative experience includes working as assistant dean of student and faculty development at her alma mater where she focused on the retention and recruitment of underrepresented minorities at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

Among her many honors and awards for her work in medicine and in the community, Dr. Edwards has received the Zeta Phi Beta Woman of the Year in Medicine Award (1997), Maryland’s Top One Hundred Women Award (2003), and special recognition by The Girl Scouts of Central Maryland (2004). In 2007, she received the Congressional Black Caucus Award for Literature for the co-authored book with Andrea King Collier, The Black Woman’s Guide to Black Men’s Health.

In addition to her executive leadership responsibilities at the NMA and her fulltime practice as an internist, Dr. Edwards currently serves on the Board of the Medical Mutual Liability Company, Maryland’s medical liability insurer, holds an appointment on the Federal Drug Administration’s (FDA) Blood Products Advisory Committee and is a member of the board of the Community Health Charities.

A strong health advocate, Dr. Edwards enjoys a variety of outdoor activities, including skiing, biking, scuba diving and golf.

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