Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo is to be the new editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Stat News reports.
Bibbins-Domingo is an internist and epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, where she has been involved in population health and health equity matters, according to the American Medical Association. It adds that she also trained as a biochemist under Harold Varmus.
Bibbins-Domingo is to begin the post at the start of July, which is currently held on an interim basis by Phil Fontanarosa, the AMA says.
Fontanarosa, the AMA executive editor, took over after Howard Bauchner stepped down last June. Bauchner had been on administrative leave after a JAMA Network podcast questioned whether there was structural racism in medicine. This, as Stat News notes, led to an uproar and underscored the lack of diversity among journals' editors and editorial boards.
It adds that the selection of Bibbins-Domingo, who is Black, has been met with approval around Twitter and elsewhere. "She's going to be a welcome breath of fresh air," Siobhan Wescott, director of American Indian Health at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, who tweeted criticism of the JAMA podcast, says, according to Stat News.