After a study made the claim that posing in a bikini is unprofessional for a medical professional, women have been taking to social media to post pictures of themselves in swimwear in protest.
The hashtag #medbikini is being used to protest the 2019 study - per Yahoo! - titled Prevalence of unprofessional social media content among young vascular surgeons.
One post in particular, from Dr. Candice Myhre, is gaining particular traction on social media for its striking depiction of how she saved a man's life while in a bikini.
The post contains a lengthy and powerful caption, which reads in full:
"Dr Bikini ?will save your life in the middle of the Ocean when you get hit by a boat. I will take you out of the ocean on a surfboard turned into a backboard, tie off your exsanguinating wound with my rash guard, take you to my under equipped urgent care, stabilize you in 1 hour with an IV, oxygen, morphine, fluids, Foley, and put your open femur fracture in Bucks traction, fly you by helicopter to a local hospital, order and interpret all the labs, xrays, CT scans, suture/staple all your wounds, splint your clavicle/ humerus and scapula fractures,sedate you, put a chest tube in your 5 rib fractured hemopneumothorax and fly you by jet to a specialty hospital in another country....all in my you guessed it.
"I am an Emergency Medicine Physician standing in solidarity with female vascular surgeons today. NEWSFLASH: FEMALE DOCTORS CAN WEAR WHATEVER THEY WANT.
"Female doctors, nurses, NPs/PAs, all healthcare professionals - we can wear a bikini, a dress, or we can wear scrubs. This does not change how good we are at being a healthcare provider. We can wear WHATEVER we want on our free time, and still save your life.
"Sexism in medicine is alive and well. But we won’t let that stop us. In this ridiculous article published in a well respected medical journal, the vascular surgery authors sought out to determine how many vascular surgeons had participated in what they state is “inappropriate social media behavior”, which they defined as FEMALES IN BIKINIS - BUT GET THIS: NOT MEN IN BATHING SUITS. Other topics considered “inappropriate” were Halloween costumes (should I take down my pregnant nun costume?) GUN CONTROL and politics. The “study” was written by 3 men who created fake social media accounts to spy on applicants. My dad who was a triple boarded cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon would not approve of their study. Especially since he liked gardening in a speedo.
"Women in medicine: whether you’re a nurse, medical student, resident, an attending, post your favorite bikini pic/dress pic/halloween pic/anything today and tag me, and #medbikini . We have to drown out the sexism in medicine and keep it moving. It’s 2020 people. Sexism is cancelled."
You can view the post in full on Instagram here, though be warned that if you are upset by the sight of blood and injury, you may find the image distressing.
Since this post, Dr Myhre has gone on to share more of her experienced working as a physician on Instagram. You can read her latest posts on her Instagram page, here.
According to Forbes the study, which was published in the Journal of Vascular Surgery, has now been retracted by the journal's editorial board.