The story behind the widely shared photo of a bikini-clad doctor who helped a patient on the brink of death

• An image of Dr. Candice Myhre, an emergency-medicine physician, treating a bloody, injured patient has been shared widely online in the past week.
• The striking photo is a reenactment of a moment in November 2013 when Myhre was surfing, saw a woman get hit by a 24-foot boat, and sprang into action to save her.
• Myhre's photo gained renewed attention after a controversial study described doctors wearing bikinis as "unprofessional."
• The study sparked a conversation about sexism in medicine, with doctors posting bikini photos with the hashtag #MedBikini.

Photos of an emergency-medicine doctor treating a bloodied patient while wearing a bikini swept social media last week.

In the images, Dr. Candice Myhre, a doctor in Hawaii who also goes by "Dr. Bikini," is treating a man with serious leg wounds. It was a reenactment of a moment in November 2013 when she was surfing and saw a 24-foot boat hit a woman, who Myhre said sustained "life-threatening injuries."

She went through the motions for a TV segment called "Dr. Bikini: Untold Stories of the ER," which aired in November 2014.

Myhre told Insider she shared the image on July 25 to protest a retracted, controversial study that analyzed doctors' use of social media and described doctors who were photographed in bikinis as "unprofessional." Incensed, Myhre shared her pictures on Instagram with the hashtag #MedBikini, joining thousands of other doctors.

"It is disgraceful that such a sexist study could get approved in the first place," Myhre told Insider. "Who cares if your board-certified doctor has a personal life? Shouldn't we want medical professionals to be happy in their personal lives so that they are successful in their professional lives?"

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. Sexism is cancelled.

A post shared by DabbleCO (@dabbleco) on Jul 27, 2020 at 12:40pm PDTJul 27, 2020 at 12:40pm PDT

—Ariela Rozenek (@Gyneonbeat) July 24, 2020

It was the first time Myhre made her personal life public

When Myhre first caught wind of the study, she was outraged.

It was published quietly, behind a paywall, on the website of the Journal of Vascular Surgery on Christmas Day 2019, but it became free to read in late July. It concluded that doctors who posted bikini photos might be perceived as "provocative," "unprofessional," and "inappropriate."

In response, people in the medical field shared photos of themselves in bikinis to demonstrate the double standards in their workplaces, and #MedBikini became an internet phenomenon.

Myhre said she had never participated in a social-media movement before, for fear of retribution at work. But the #MedBikini movement hit close to home, so she decided to take a chance and posted her photo on her personal Instagram account.

In the photo, Myhre is reenacting the moment she used a surfboard to pull the woman to safety. She said she also pulled off her rash guard and used it to stop the woman from bleeding to death, treated her in a remote urgent-care facility in under an hour to get her out of critical condition, and flew her to a hospital for further treatment.

Myhre said that though she wasn't working at the time, she sprang into action to treat the woman's injuries and save her life — all while wearing a bikini.

"I managed her care by myself, in an underdeveloped country, by performing multiple procedures and transfers, including from the ocean to island, island, mainland hospital, and then evacuation by jet to a developed country," Myhre said.

Fans have called Myhre a 'global hero' and a 'role model'

Myhre said most of the reactions to her post were positive, with people dubbing her a "badass," a "global hero," and a "role model."

Some have asked Myhre to write a book or create a movie or television show about her career. She said the overwhelming support was pushing her to work on longtime goals that showcase her talents as an emergency-medicine physician.

One of those goals is writing a memoir "about being a surf doctor and my obstacles along the way," Myhre said, adding that she'd also like to "create a forum where men and women can discuss their sexist experiences at work and make positive change."

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