Barbie honors COVID - 19 first responders with new role model dolls

Barbie honors COVID with a new line of first responders with a medical role model dolls. The six-doll collection was developed to highlight the valiant act frontline workers have taken throughout coronavirus pandemic. Mattel selected six women who proved to be real-life heroes in the medical field during the global health crisis and designed one-of-a-kind Barbie dolls based on their image. With more than 200 careers, Barbie has done it all in an effort to inspire girls to believe that they can be anything, Mattel's SVP and global head of Barbie and Dolls, Lisa McKnight, exclusively told FOX Business. Now it's our turn to be inspired as we honour these real-life heroes and continue to leverage Barbie platform to shine a light on brave women who, selflessly, are leading the world through the pandemic. Representing the U.S. are registered nurse Audrey Sue Cruz from Staten Island, New York, and internal medicine physician Amy O'Sullivan from Las Vegas, Nevada. O'Sullivan made headlines in March last year for treating NYC's first known COVID - 19 patient in Brooklyn at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, January 1999. A few days after her exposure to the second patient, OSullivan displayed coronavirus symptoms and had to be intubated but ultimately returned to the emergency room where she worked on treating other patients. On The 100 Most Influential People Of 2020 list, she earned a spot on the September cover of TIME Magazine. Cruz has worked as a full-time hospitalist and faculty member for the Loma Linda University Medical Center in California throughout the pandemic. When Mattel isn't blogging about wellness, she has been fighting racial bias and discrimination alongside other Asian American healthcare workers, Cruz reports. Making up the rest of the Barbie medical role model line are Kirby White, Chika Stacy Oriuwa, Sarah Gilbert, Jaqueline G es de Jesus and Sarah Gilbert. Oriuwa is a Canadian psychiatrist who specializes in treating adolescents and children at the University of Toronto. Throughout the pandemic, she's advocated against systemic racism in healthcare industry that has affected people of color, according to multiple studies. Gilbert, an instrumental professor of vaccinology at the University of Oxford, led COVID - 19 vaccine development that played an instrumental role in the U.K. Before the coronavirus pandemic, Gilbert had made strides in malaria vaccine research. G es de Jesus, a Brazilian biomedical researcher and scientist at the University of S o Paulo, worked on genome sequencing of the COVID 19 variant that has been infecting people in Brazil. In March 2020, her team was recognized by the Bahia Legislative Assembly after successfully sequencing the genome in 48 hours. White is an Australian specialist general practitioner who co-founded Gowns for Doctors, a crowdfunded initiative that designed reusable PPE gowns for frontline workers in Victoria. When she is not distributing dresses, White practices medicine at The GP Clinic Bendigo. Mattel has also partnered with Target on a donation campaign that will benefit the First Responders Children's Foundation. The Toy giant will donate $5 to the FRCF for every disabled paramedic, nurse and doctor Barbie doll sold at a participating Target store. The campaign will run until Aug. 28 and has max contribution of $50,000. This charity initiative is a continuation of Mattel's ThankYouHeroes program, which launched a signature campaign that started shortly after the coronavirus pandemic in May 2020.