VIDEO: Scrubs and Heels event aims to empower its ‘tribe’ of women in GI
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In this video exclusive with Healio Gastroenterology, Anita Afzali, MD, MPH, and Aline Charabaty, MD, co-founders of Scrubs and Heels, announced the Scrubs and Heels Summit.
The event will take place March 25 to 27 in Miami Beach, Florida.
Afzali said she and Charabaty discussed the need for an initiative such as Scrubs and Heels for the women in gastroenterology together as a “tribe.”
“We need an initiative to help empower, network, collaborate and partner with all the fantastic women in the field of gastroenterology,” Afzali said. “We initiated this with the purpose of knowing the importance of having a tribe of women to be available for each other.”
She noted they wanted to help women with their professional and personal components of self, the opportunity to learn how to have contracts and navigate through finances.
Charabaty noted the field of GI is losing many women gastroenterologists, because they find it difficult to balance work and life in the way the field is run today. She said women need to redesign it to fit their needs and goals.
Charabaty said they want to amplify the voices of women in GI.
“We need to give them more of a voice, platform,” Charabaty said. “We need to learn how to network and increase our tribe and strengthen each other. We wanted to create an opportunity for women to come together and learn about each other’s strengths and needs and amplify each other’s voices and grow together.”
With Scrubs and Heels, the co-founders said they hope to provide women the tools they need to achieve their goals, amplify their leadership skills, learn how to speak at conferences, create their ‘brand’ and how to grow as women within the field and anything else they want to be a part of.
Charabaty said she enjoys conferences because they are way to communicate and connect with others and collaborate and advance their careers.
Afzali and Charabaty said they wanted the conference to be fun, with a touch of ‘glam’.
Charabaty wants for this conference to help women maintain the joy of working in the field of GI.
“We look forward to partnering with each of you, to be able to learn from each other, to navigate how do we advance the field for all females in the field of gastroenterology and beyond, ” Afzali concluded.