Ideas for a new world

The cover of The BMJ’s Christmas print issue this year (fig 1) shows a respiratory medicine consultant who obtained an MBBS from Barbie Land’s prestigious Handler University and then a doctoral dissertation on the causes of lung cancer in young adults. Dr Barbie is now a professor at Handler and a hospital specialist with a passion for smoking cessation and caring for patients, including those with combined chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer. Dr Barbie is also black and has vitiligo.bmj;383/dec21_2/p2971/F1F1f1Fig 1Cover from the 2023 Christmas issue of The BMJBut you won’t find this Barbie doll in the Christmas sales; Dr Barbie was created by The BMJ, inspired by the work of the US based researcher Katherine Klamer. Klamer’s analysis of 92 medical and scientist Barbie dolls found only a few careers represented, mostly generalists in nursing and paediatrics, reflecting tired yet persistent gender norms (doi:10.1136/bmj-2023-077276).1 Ethnic diversity and…
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