Doctors take a dig at sexist study by posting bikini photos with #MedBikini

The Journal of Vascular Surgery came up with a new study under the name “Prevalence of unprofessional social media content among young vascular surgeons.” Well, the study depicts the impact of doctors’ bikini images on patients while choosing them as their medical examiner or expert. The study focuses on reiterating that these images showcase the unprofessional attitude of doctors and medical experts who post photos of alcohol consumption or “unprofessional attire” are considered under the radar of the whole research. 

Apparently, to silently and professionally oppose this study, doctors have been posting their favorite swimsuit photos on social media with the hashtag #MedBikini. The study has received backlash from all over the world where doctors including netizens are lashing out on the authors. Also, one of the social media users has termed the research as “sexist.” One doctor tweeted, “Enjoying a mimosa in a bathing suit does not change my commitment to my career or to my patients. Physicians deserve to enjoy life too” with a comparative photo of herself where at one side she’s seen wearing a swimsuit and the other side is the white coat. 

Carmer Simmons wrote on Twitter by retweeting one of the Doctor’s photos, “I’m incredibly happy to see that there has been so much support and calling out the blatant double standards in medicine that exist far beyond the world of twitter. And glad to see all these fearless women physicians fighting for our right to be in this space.” 

However, after following the rant on social media, the Journal of Vascular Surgery has apologized and one of the study authors personally tweeted, “I would like to apologize for the paper “Prevalence of unprofessional social media content among young vascular surgeons.” Our intent was to empower surgeons to be aware and then personally decide what may be easily available for patients and colleagues to see about us.” 

He concluded by stating that the definition of professionalism in rapidly evolving and changing, and one should admit to that.