The field of medicine can now be diagnosed as “woke.”
Dr. Howard Bauchner, the editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association, will step down at the end of the month. His departure was announced by the American Medical Association, which publishes the journal. It follows the controversy on Tuesday after publicity was brought to a February episode of JAMA’s podcast — specifically, the remark by Dr. Edward Livingston: “Personally, I think taking racism out of the conversation will help. Many people like myself are offended by the implication that we are somehow racist.”
Livingston, a fellow JAMA editor, suggested that it was not structural racism, but rather socioeconomic factors that have held back communities of color.
That comment, and a since-deleted tweet promoting the podcast that read, “No physician is racist, so how can there be structural racism in health care?,” provoked outrage in some quarters. The podcast episode was then deleted and replaced with a recorded apology by Bauchner: “Comments made in the podcast were inaccurate, offensive, and hurtful, and inconsistent with the standards of JAMA. Racism and structural racism exist in the United States, and in healthcare.” Livingston has since resigned, and the American Medical Association has placed Bauchner on administrative leave.
It’s just another example of cancellation-for-being-insufficiently-woke.
While there are racial disparities in the healthcare system, that does not mean that the system itself is racist. To jump to that conclusion, and to demand that medical researchers should defer to a protest movement, is deeply problematic. After all, we should want our scientists to be minded toward the pursuit of the truth, wherever it leads, rather than the pursuit of a silenced screech.
This latest episode exemplifies that woke culture is taking over yet another institution. To stop the spread of this intellectual rot, we must be more willing to stand up for what we believe in — and more willing to stand up against the Orwellian mob.
Jackson Richman is a journalist in Washington, D.C. Follow him @jacksonrichman.
