JAMA deputy editor resigns after critics hit out at podcast on structural racism

The deputy editor of the journal JAMA has resigned after a podcast on structural racism in medicine was widely criticised and a petition calling for an investigation into the broadcast attracted more than 2000 signatures.1

The podcast was published on 23 February and has since been withdrawn. But a tweet to promote the episode, which has been deleted, said, “No physician is racist, so how can there be structural racism in health care? An explanation of the idea by doctors for doctors in this user-friendly podcast.”

Both JAMA’s editor, Howard Bauchner, and James Madara, head of the American Medical Association, which publishes the journal, have apologised for the broadcast, saying, “Comments made in the podcast were inaccurate, offensive, hurtful, and inconsistent with the standards of JAMA …