The New Yorker Cover That’s Being Replicated by Women Surgeons Across the World

T he New Yorker’s Health, Medicine & the Body Issue this year featured the animated cover “Operating Theatre,” by the French artist Malika Favre. The illustration, done in cool shades of blue, shows four female members of a surgical team gazing down over a patient on an operating table, their eyes bright above matching white surgical masks. Favre told us that she designed the scene with the patient’s perspective in mind. “I tried to capture that feeling of people watching you lose consciousness,” she said. But, after the magazine was released, the cover took on a life of its own when Susan Pitt, an endocrine surgeon at the University of Wisconsin, issued a challenge to her fellow female surgeons: to replicate the image in real life, bringing visibility to the women and other minority groups working in a traditionally white, male-dominated field. Hundreds of surgeons across the world responded to the challenge, taking photographs and sharing them online with the hashtag #ILookLikeASurgeon.

Dr. Haneen Gomawi, of Saudi Arabia, who posted a photo (above) with two of her female colleagues, told us, via Twitter, “We (lady surgeons) face lots of challenges, in the surgical field & in life; despite the difference in countries.” It felt “empowering, bonding & reassuring” to participate in the challenge, she said, adding, “Sorry for this very quick un-neat reply. I am currently on-duty for 24 hrs.”

Pitt told us by e-mail, “Women surgeons are saying to other women surgeons, ‘I see you,’ and to the world, ‘See us.’ ”

See below for a selection of a few of the posts: