AMA’s Journal of Ethics Names College of Medicine student

The American Medical Association’s Journal of Ethics named Northeast Ohio Medical University student Austin Hilt as this year’s theme editor for its March 2019 issue, titled “Health Care Organizations and Community Development.” Hilt (shown in photo above, center, seated) worked with the journal’s editorial staff to solicit writers for the issue.

Hilt, a third-year College of Medicine student, was honored as a result of a competitive process. Julie Aultman, Ph.D., director of the Master of Medical Ethics and Humanities program at NEOMED, nominated Hilt for the opportunity and provided faculty advisement.

Attracted to Public Health

The College of Medicine student has a longstanding interested in public health. He came to NEOMED with a Bachelor of Science degree and a Master of Public Health degree, both from Youngstown State. In spring 2018, as a second-year student at NEOMED, Hilt contributed an article to the University’s Ignite magazine titled, “Food and Medical Citizenship: How Youngstown Shaped My Role in Medicine.”

Dr. Aultman said of Hilt, “His leadership, ability to navigate difficult ethical issues, and passion for social justice issues in health care delivery is the perfect mix for becoming a guest editor for the Journal of Ethics. I always knew he would succeed and produce a themed issue that was not only deeply meaningful to him, but would send an important message to his readership about the need to be more aware of our communities external to the clinical setting.”

A year in the making

All told, it was more than a year from the time of Hilt’s selection and working on the theme issue to seeing it come to fruition in March 2019. After being selected in December 2017, Hilt and other issue editors met with editorial staff in Chicago in February 2018 to work on content and case development, and to solicit experts to write articles for the March 2019 issue.

One such author is Dr. Aultman, whose theme issue article is titled, “How Should Health Care Professionals Address Social Determinants of Refugee Health?”

The AMA describes its Journal of Ethics as an online, open-access journal that is published monthly. The Journal is MEDLINE-indexed, meaning that its articles are selected for inclusion into Pubmed/MEDLINE, a bibliographic database for articles in the life sciences.