Sir Isaac Newton’s first law of motion says in part: “A body in motion stays in motion.”

The statement fits Dr. Willarda V. Edwards to a tee.

The 1977 graduate is president and chief operating officer of the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America in Baltimore. She is the former chairman of the National Medical Association and currently its treasurer, a delegate to the American Medical Association from Maryland, chair of the AMA Women Physicians Congress, and the first African- American woman president of the Maryland State Medical Society after taking office in October.

What’s more, she has a thriving medical practice in Baltimore, her hometown. “Sometimes I have to sit back and think—vacation, what is that like?” says Dr. Edwards. “I actually shed one hat and put another one back on.”

Her biggest priorities are to raise awareness of sickle cell anemia and try to bring in more funding for research to find a cure. The disease affects 85,000 people across the country, including African Americans, Hispanics and other races. One in every 320 African-American babies has some form of sickle cell trait and one out of every 4,000 babies is born with some kind of inherited blood cell disorder.

“ It is still a major issue now, and the statistics have not improved other than the fact that we do have people getting better medical care,” says Dr. Edwards, who noted that there are 3.5 million people in the country with the sickle cell trait. “The lifespan has more than doubled for many of the sickle cell patients, but . . . there are still issues.”

Dr. Edwards joined the association this past summer after working as the national director of the national NAACP Health Advocacy Division. While she was at the NAACP, Dr. Edwards worked to make people aware of the disparity in health care among African Americans and Hispanics and advocated for changes in the health care delivery system; so patients could receive better treatment.

About a year ago, the Sickle Cell Disease Association decided to move its headquarters to Baltimore from Los Angeles where it had been located for 30 years. When its president declined to move, the association began searching for a new leader.

“ I put in my application, and they saw my activities at the NAACP and the NMA and the financial turnaround at the NMA and recognized that they needed those qualities,” Dr. Edwards says. “I saw this as another opportunity to do more especially right here at home.” Dr. Edwards received a blessing from her boss, NAACP head Kweisi Mfume, to pursue the job. “Mr. Mfume said, ‘You can go if you decide to do that.’ I decided with his full support.”

Her goal is to keep sickle cell at the forefront of lawmakers’ minds and advocate for those who suffer from the disease. She believes the disease could be the first one cured through the Human Genome Project. Dr. Edwards oversees an office with a staff of 10 employees. The master’s degree in business that she received in 1999 has helped her manage the operation. The job “is a natural fit,” Dr. Edwards says. “This was an opportunity for me to use even more of my MBA in terms of organizing the association.”

A native of Baltimore, it didn’t take Dr. Edwards long to realize that she wanted to become a doctor. One day her mother, who was a middle school counselor, bought her brothers a doctor’s bag and young Willarda a nurse’s bag. “I fought with my brothers to get the medical bag,” says Dr. Edwards, “and I got it.” Playing with the medical bag gave Dr. Edwards a taste for the profession.

By the time she was in high school, the family moved to El Paso, Texas, because her father, a computer specialist in the U.S. Army, was transferred. In 9th grade Dr. Edwards began to think seriously about medicine after joining the Health Career Club at school. “I actually did enjoy the sciences and I liked people,” Dr. Edwards says. “I thought it was a good combination.”

Tragedy struck the family when Dr. Edwards’ 15-month-old stepsister died of sickle cell.

“ It was devastating,” says Dr. Edwards, who was 19-years-old at the time. “I never thought I would champion the cause of sickle cell disease.”

After graduating from the University of Texas at El Paso, Dr. Edwards joined the U.S. Navy as a reservist. “I liked water; so I said I would join the military, and I joined the Navy,” she says. “I figured that in the Navy every place would be on the water. But the Navy has a lot of dry bases.”

After graduating from medical school, Dr. Edwards did her residency at Greater Baltimore Medical Center and then spent four years on active duty with the Navy, stationed in Annapolis and at Bethesda Naval Hospital. An internist, Dr. Edwards opened her own practice in 1984.

Since then, Dr. Edwards, who is single, has been on the move. As the president of MedChi, Dr. Edwards has a full agenda. She wants to push for tort reform, patient safety and making sure all patients receive the best treatment.

She is troubled by the fact that poor and lower-middle class people don’t have access to good care because they are on medical assistance and physicians’ reimbursement rates are so low.

“ That is why a lot of doctors are saying they aren’t going to see medical assistance patients,” Dr. Edwards says. “It is a vicious cycle. You break your foot and then try to get on a bus . . . and see a doctor out in the county. That is not good quality care.”

For now, Dr. Edwards sees herself as busy as ever treating patients, serving on medical boards and running the Sickle Cell Disease Association. Does she expect to slow down anytime soon? “Not really. Not yet,” Dr. Edwards says. “It is very clear that whatever I do, I try to do the very best and make a difference.”