Salles is an international speaker who worked on the front lines and supported health professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic through social media.
[6] In 2014, Salles completed a PhD social psychology from Stanford University, after which she finished her last two years of surgical residency, going on to become a Board Certified Surgeon in 2016.
[5] After finishing her residency and PhD in 2016, Salles then completed a year-long fellowship training in minimally invasive surgery at Washington University School of Medicine in St.
[6] In addition to issues of mental health burden due to burnout, Salles also began to see evidence of inequities, bias, and gender harassment in medicine, specifically in surgery,[3] so she took a break from her residency to pursue a PhD in education.
[8] From September 2016 to June 2019, Salles was an assistant professor in the Department of Surgery at Washington University, where her lab conducted research on gender bias and inequities in medicine.
[10] In 2018, Salles became a founding member of Time's Up Healthcare, part of the organization's initiative which supports "safe, fair, and dignified" work for women around the world and helps to prevent sexual assault and gender-based discrimination in the workplace.
[15] In 2019, Salles became a Board Certified Physician of Obesity Medicine, and returned to Stanford to develop Educational Programs and Services at the medical school.
[16][5] Her research focused on the representation of women at surgical conferences, implicit and explicit gender bias in healthcare and in performance evaluations, and how to maintain the health and wellbeing of physicians and medical trainees.
[19] During the COVID-19 pandemic,[20] Salles created fitness challenges, free weekly yoga classes, and daily videos on Twitter and Instagram to engage her followers and bring together a supportive community.
[3] Salles began to realize the ways in which stereotype threat might be affecting her and her female peers in their evaluations during her surgery residency.