Barbie to honor COVID - 19 First Responders with new role model dolls

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Barbie to honor COVID - 19 First Responders with new role model dolls

Barbie is honoring COVID - 19 First Responders with a new line of medical role model dolls.

The six-doll collection was created to highlight the valiant actions frontline workers have taken throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

Nativity selected six women who proved to be real-life heroes in the medical field during this global health crisis and designed one-of-a-kind Barbie dolls in their image.

Lisa McKnight has done it all to inspire females to believe that they can be anything, Mattel’s SVP and global head of Barbie and Dolls, Barbie, told FOX Business exclusively. Now it's our turn to stand up and be inspired as we honor these real-life heroes and continue to leverage Barbie's platform to shine a light on courageous women leading the world through the pandemic.

Representing the U.S. are registered nurse Audrey Sue Cruz from Las Vegas, Nevada and internal medicine physician Amy O'Sullivan from Staten Island, New York.

O'Sullivan made headlines in March last year for treating Brooklyn's first known COVID - 19 in NYC at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center. A few days after her exposure to the first patient, O'Sullivan displayed coronavirus symptoms and had to be intubated, but eventually returned to the emergency room where she worked to treat other patients.

Her selfless dedication earned her a spot as the September cover of TIME magazine on The 100 Most Influential People Of 2020 list.

Cruz worked as a full-time hospitalist and faculty member at the Loma Linda University Medical Center in California throughout the pandemic. When Cruz isn't writing about health, she’s been fighting racial bias and discrimination alongside other Asian American healthcare workers, Mattel reports.

The rest of Barbie medical role model line are Kirby White, Rehearsal, Chika Stacy Oriuwa, Sarah Gilbert, Jaqueline G es de Jesus and Chika Stacy Oriuwa.

Oriuwa is a Canadian psychiatrist who specializes in treating children and adolescents at the University of Toronto. Throughout the Pandemic, she has led the effort in healthcare to end systemic racism that has impacted people of color, according to multiple studies.

Gilbert, a British professor of vaccinology at the University of Oxford led COVID -19 vaccine development which played an instrumental role in the U.K. Prior to 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 Alpha variant that has been infecting people in Brazil. In March 2020, her team was recognized by the legislative assembly of Bahia for successfully sequencing the genome in 48 hours.

White is an Australian specialist general practitioner who Co-founded Gowns for Doctors, a crowd-funded initiative that created reusable PPE gowns for frontline workers in Victoria. When she's not wearing gowns, White practices medicine in Bendigo GP Clinic.

Mattel has also partnered with Target for a donation campaign which will benefit the First Responders Children's Foundation.

The toy giant will donate $5 to the FRCF for every eligible paramedic, nurse and doctor Barbie doll that is sold at a participating Target store. The campaign runs until Aug 28 and has a maximum contribution of $50,000.

This program is a continuation of Mattel's ThankyouHeroes program, a signature campaign the company started in May 2020 shortly after the coronavirus pandemic started.