For the first time, the Journal of the American Medical Association will be led by an editor-in-chief of color. Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo is a longtime health equity advocate, internist, professor and cardiovascular disease epidemiologist.
She joins JAMA shortly after the airing of a controversial podcast that questioned whether systemic racism in medicine exists, which caused the journal's former editor-in-chief, a Boston pediatrician, to step down.
"The first thing is for us to be able to talk about it, name it and be truthful about what it is that medicine and science don't exist apart from the larger conversations, the larger structural biases, racism and inequities that exist within society," Bibbins-Domingo told Jim Braude on Greater Boston.
She added, "in many ways, racism in medicine contributes to the larger issues of structural inequities that we see."
Bibbins-Domingo said the self-reflection JAMA has gone through since the airing of the podcast is emblematic of the entire situation that medicine and science should go through when confronting racism.
Watch: Incoming JAMA editor on addressing racism in medicine
