While the sacking of JAMA editor, has stimulated a lot of discussion as
to what should and should not be done, it would be a very bad decision
for talented researchers not to send their articles for publication to
JAMA. Condeming the people behind this unfortunate decisions is not the
same thing as condeming the journal. As far as the EBM movement is
concerned no other journal ( apologies to NEJM and Archives Inte
Medicine) has give the time and space to publish articles on EBM. JAMA
played a major role and still continues to publish articles on EBM. The
current wave of EBM owes a lot to JAMA and probably in the vision of
Dr. Lundberg.
Political agenda and personal decisions of hiring and firing, should not
be the sole criteria
for selecting the suitability of a journal for article submissions. I
suppose this would amount to a new bias in medical literature called "
discrimination bias."
I still feel that the name of the journal is above all single individual
interests. JAMA existed before this unfortunate event and I am sure will
continue to serve its role as a foremost journal in future.
Amit Ghosh, MD
Division of General Internal Medicine
University of Minnesota
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