In 1889, Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte graduated at the top of her class from the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, becoming the first Native American woman to earn a medical degree in US history — at a time when the system had made clear it wasn’t built for people like her. Now, Mattel is adding her to its Barbie Inspiring Women collection, releasing a doll that lands in November 2026 and was developed in collaboration with her own great-granddaughter.
A Doctor Who Built Her Own Hospital
Picotte was born on June 17, 1865, on the Omaha Reservation in Nebraska. As a child, she watched a sick Native American woman die after a white physician refused to provide care. That moment, by most accounts, is where her path began. Her father, Joseph La Flesche, was a prominent Omaha leader who pushed for education as a form of survival — and his daughter took that seriously in a way few could have anticipated.
After graduating, she returned to Nebraska and took on a caseload that would exhaust most physicians: more than 1,000 patients spread across a vast rural area, often reached only by traveling miles on dirt roads. She didn’t just treat illness. She campaigned for sanitation, disease prevention, and public health education — confronting tuberculosis and alcoholism as systemic problems, not personal failures. In 1913, she helped establish a hospital in Walthill, Nebraska, two years before her death on September 18, 1915. That hospital still stands as one of the more concrete symbols of what one person can build when institutions refuse to. Much like Bessie Coleman’s fight to earn her pilot license, Picotte had to leave the existing system behind to serve her community — except she came back and built something permanent.
What the Barbie Actually Looks Like — and Who Made It
The doll (product code JBJ30) features a black-and-white dress, a traditional red Omaha Nation shawl, and a medical bag. Its design draws from a bronze sculpture honoring Picotte in Nebraska — not from a stock image, not from a studio interpretation. Mattel reportedly collaborated with her great-granddaughter, Susan Picotte, and the Picotte Center to develop the product, which matters: too many ‘tribute’ items get made without the community’s voice anywhere near the process.
The doll retails for $38 USD at Mattel Creations and $37.99 at Target, with preorders also available at BigBadToyStore ($42.99) and Deep Discount ($45.07). Search product code JBJ30 on any of those platforms to check current availability. It was unveiled on November 9, 2026, at Umonhon Nation Public School in Macy, Nebraska, with a second event scheduled for November 11 at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha. It’s part of the same Inspiring Women series that has previously honored Rosa Parks, Ida B. Wells, Madam C.J. Walker, and Ellen Ochoa — women whose stories also had to fight to reach mainstream shelves.
