Just What The Doctor Ordered

When the animated children's show "Doc McStuffins" debuted, Dr. Myiesha Taylor, a physician with a 4-year-old daughter, was excited to see "child of color in a starring role... and she’s an aspiring intellectual professional, not a singer or dancer or athlete.” Taylor was inspired and later created an online collage featuring an image of little Doc surrounded by 131 photos of real-life African-American female doctors, writing: "We are trailblazers. We are women of color. We are physicians. We ARE role-models. We are Doc McStuffins all grown up!"

Since then, Taylor and other physicians have taken the "We Are Doc McStuffins" concept to a whole new level -- they founded an organization, the Artemis Medical Society, a new organization to support and nurture a "global sisterhood of women physicians of color," and have signed up more than 3,000 doctors and medical students from around the world. In addition to supporting practicing doctors and students, they also want to encourage more young girls of color to consider medicine.

In an interview with Ebony Magazine Taylor explains, “Doc McStuffins is important to me because I am that little girl. And it’s not just me. My female friends who are physicians have all been talking about Doc. We love what she represents... We didn’t have Doc or anything close to her on television when we were growing up. Many of the cartoons we watched contained stereotypes regarding minorities that would never be aired today.”

She continues, “In 20 years we should see the first group of medical school graduates who will say their dream of becoming a doctor began when they saw their first telecast of Doc McStuffins. Then someone can write the story or thesis about the Doc McStuffins effect on healthcare. Won’t that be amazing?”

To learn more about the  Artemis Medical Society, visit http://artemismedicalsociety.org/. To read the full article in Ebony, visit Ebony, "We Are Doc McStuffins".