Barbie to honor COVID - 19 heroes with first line of Barbie dolls

Barbie is honoring COVID -19 with the new line of medical role model dolls with a first line of Barbie dolls. The six-doll collection was created to highlight the valiant deeds frontline workers have taken throughout coronavirus pandemic, and these workers captured all of the pain in the mouth since they were alive. Mattel selected six women that 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. With over 200 career options, 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 honor these real-life heroes and continue to leverage Barbie's platform to shine a light on the courageous women who alone led the world through the pandemic. Representing the U.S. are registered nurses Audrey Sue Cruz from Staten Island, Nevada, and internal medicine physician Amy O'Sullivan from Las Vegas, Nevada. O'Sullivan made headlines in March last year for treating NYC's first COVID - 19 patient in Wyckoff Heights medical center at Brooklyn. A few days after her exposure to the second patient, O'Sullivan displayed coronavirus symptoms and was forced to be intubated but then returned to the emergency room where she worked to treat other patients. Her selfless dedication earned her a spot on The 100 Most Influential People Of 2020 list as TIME magazine's cover star for September in the list of Top 300 Influential People of 2020. Cruz has worked in the pandemic as a full-time hospitalist and faculty member at Loma Linda University Medical Center in California. When Mattel isn't blogging about wellness, she fighting racial bias and discrimination alongside other Asian American healthcare workers, Cruz reports. Making up the rest of Barbie medical role model line are Chika Stacy Oriuwa, Kirby White, Sarah Gilbert, Jaqueline G es de Jesus and Kirby White. Oriuwa is a Canadian psychiatrist who specializes in treating children and adolescents at the University of Toronto. Throughout the pandemic, she's advocated against systemic racism in the healthcare industry, which 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 that played an instrumental role in the U.K. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, Gilbert made strides in malaria vaccine research. G es de Jesus, a Brazilian biomedical scientist and researcher 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 is not distributing gowns, White practices medicine at the Bendigo GP Clinic. Mattel has also partnered with Target on a donation campaign which will benefit the First Responders Children Foundation. The toy giant will donate $5 to the FRCF for each individual Barbie doll sold at participating Target stores by eligible paramedics, nurses and doctor. The campaign will run until august 28 and will have max contribution of $50,000. Cette initiative is a continuation of Mattel's ThankYouHeroes Program, a signature campaign the company launched in May 2020 just after the coronavirus pandemic started.