A podcast and a tweet sponsored by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) regarding systemic racism in medicine has resulted in the resignation of two senior staff of JAMA, including the Editor in Chief.
At its heart, the podcast and the tweet question the existence of racism in American medicine since "racism" is against US law.
Let me be clear. I spent 50 years in health care, much of it in hospitals from the 1970s through the 1990s. In those days, medicine was unabashedly sexist and racist. In those days a (female) nurse was required to give up her seat at the nursing station to a (male) physician when he arrived to make rounds on his patients. The (female) nurse was also expected to carry cigarettes and lighter - whether she smoked or not - to meet the (male) physician's nicotine needs as he sat in her chair at the nurse's station writing progress notes.
American physician culture has always been 100% patriarchal. Powerful white males are pretty much the vessels of racism in medicine.
I hope JAMA is sincere in this. I hope the structural sexism and racism inherent in the system is facing a moment of reckoning.
