In her most pointed public feedback since her choice as JAMA editor-in-chief, Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo acknowledged she had a visceral response to the podcast scandal that led to her predecessor’s departure. However in the end, she wasn’t stunned.
“I wish to say I’ve by no means heard the varieties of sentiments that have been expressed within the podcast, however these occur pretty generally,” Bibbins-Domingo stated throughout a Q&A with STAT Government Editor Rick Berke at a Wednesday dinner honoring her and different members of the inaugural STATUS Record at Fenway Park in Boston. “For me, the problems that have been so distinguished to put JAMA within the information weren’t shocking points. They’re not distinctive to JAMA.”
Bibbins-Domingo, an internist, epidemiologist, and health-equity researcher, would be the first particular person of shade to function editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Medical Affiliation when she begins on July 1. Howard Bauchner stepped down as editor-in-chief final June after JAMA aired a podcast in February 2021 questioning whether or not structural racism exists in well being care and the group posted a tweet studying, “No doctor is racist, so how can there be structural racism in healthcare?”
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Requested about her personal experiences with structural racism, Bibbins-Domingo stated, “I believe for these of us who’ve identities who will not be a part of the primary tradition in science and drugs, it’s arduous to pinpoint any particular signature occasion. I actually do say that the constructions have been designed traditionally to not essentially be welcoming of everyone.”
Bauchner wasn’t a part of the unique podcast episode, however revealed a follow-up dialog in March 2021 with three esteemed Black students. In it, he requested questions together with, “Do you’ve an thought of why the time period racism is so charged for white folks like me?”
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“His response was actually very remedial and disturbing,” STATUS Record honoree Siobhan Wescott stated on the occasion. Wescott, the primary endowed professor and director of American Indian well being at College of Nebraska Medical Middle’s School of Public Well being, stated Baucher’s response led her to publish a public rant on Twitter for the primary time. Bibbins-Domingo, requested if she had an analogous response as Wescott, acknowledged that she did.
The Wednesday occasion was one thing of a who’s-who within the medical and life sciences world. One other honoree was Johns Hopkins College professor of epidemiology and oncology Otis Brawley, who chaired the JAMA editor choice committee that led to Bibbins-Domingo’s appointment, and New England Journal of Drugs Editor-in-Chief Eric Rubin.
Bibbins-Domingo stated she didn’t assume she would get the job, and the interviews have been “among the most intense” she had ever had.
Brawley stated that Bibbins-Domingo instantly got here to thoughts when the search committee was weighing who may take over a journal within the midst of an upheaval. However she had additionally been on Brawley’s radar for greater than a decade — he stated he was impressed by the best way she handled politicians just like the late Rep. John Dingell whereas serving on the U.S. Preventive Providers Job Pressure.
“John Dingell was asking plenty of very powerful questions of the U.S. Preventive Providers Job Pressure training what I might name very orthodox science, the sort of stuff we have to do, versus political stuff that’s not likely science, however actually political BS. Kirsten was extremely good at coping with these politicians,” Brawley stated. “She may deal with these of us. I’d like to see you deal with a room of youngsters.”
Bibbins-Domingo was named to the inaugural STATUS Record for her work addressing well being inequities within the U.S., together with a paper she co-authored in 2021 that confirmed that Covid-19 hit California’s Latino inhabitants more durable than another group within the state, with immigrants and important employees dying on the highest charges.
The Covid-19 pandemic, she stated, has each highlighted and generally deepened medical distrust. “Even the problems of fairness which were highlighted within the pandemic have led to narratives of ‘us’ and ‘them,’” she stated. “I do assume it’s incumbent upon all of us, those that are publishing the excellent science, these of us publishing in regards to the life sciences, to continually assume by way of and problem our personal assumptions about one of the simplest ways to speak that.”
That work has already began at JAMA: All 13 of the publication’s specialty journals have named an fairness editor, and the flagship journal is about to announce who will serve in that position quickly.
Rubin stated that he was trying ahead to working with one other “fundamental scientist” and studying from Bibbins-Domingo. He additionally supplied one bit of recommendation for her: “Being a journal editor is an effective way to make associates, till you reject their papers.”
Each JAMA and NEJM affect the best way drugs is practiced within the U.S. However which one is greatest, Berke requested Bibbins-Domingo and Rubin — which journal is equal to automotive rental firm Hertz, and which one is Avis?
“I’m going to duck that query, however say that, in 2010, Kirsten revealed her largest paper within the New England Journal of Drugs,” Rubin replied, eliciting laughter and applause from the gang.
