Howard Bauchner Leaves JAMA Following Podcast Fallout

The editor-in-chief will step down this month following the release of a podcast in February that suggested systemic racism does not exist in medicine.

Written byAmanda Heidt

| 3 min read

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Howard Bauchner, the editor-in-chief of the family of JAMA journals, holds a laser pointer while speaking

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ABOVE: Howard Bauchner speaking at the University of Texas at Austin in 2015
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Update (June 3, 2021): Today, JAMA's interim editor-in-chief, Phil Fontanarosa, and colleagues published an editorial in the journal outlining “a range of editorial priorities and approaches to strive for and promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

Howard Bauchner, the editor-in-chief of JAMA for the last 11 years, will resign at the end of June following backlash over comments made by another journal editor about racism in healthcare. JAMA’s executive editor Phil Fontanarosa will serve as interim editor-in-chief.

Bauchner’s departure comes months after two editors of JAMA journals suggested in a podcast that structural racism does not exist in medicine. The two white doctors—Ed Livingston, the deputy editor of clinical content at JAMA, and Mitchell Katz, an editor at JAMA Internal Medicine—denied that they themselves were racist, suggested the word racism “might be hurting ...

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Meet the Author

Amanda Heidt
Amanda first began dabbling in scicom as a master’s student studying marine science at Moss Landing Marine Labs, where she edited the student blog and interned at a local NPR station. She enjoyed that process of demystifying science so much that after receiving her degree in 2019, she went straight into a second master’s program in science communication at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Formerly an intern at The Scientist, Amanda joined the team as a staff reporter and editor in 2021 and oversaw the publication’s internship program, assigned and edited the Foundations, Scientist to Watch, and Short Lit columns, and contributed original reporting across the publication. Amanda’s stories often focus on issues of equity and representation in academia, and she brings this same commitment to DEI to the Science Writers Association of the Rocky Mountains and to the board of the National Association of Science Writers, which she has served on since 2022. She is currently based in the outdoor playground that is Moab, Utah. Read more of her work at www.amandaheidt.com.
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