Firearm Injury Prevention

TO THE EDITOR: We read Taichman and colleagues' editorial (1) with interest. Physicians across the United States have responded to the National Rifle Association's statement that physicians should stay in their lane by sharing heart-wrenching stories and images of scrubs soaked with the blood of gunshot victims. Annals, the American College of Physicians, and the American Foundation for Firearm Injury Reduction in Medicine have responded by announcing a collaboration to increase firearm research. We medical students are grateful for such efforts but know that more must be done. As future physicians, our views span the political spectrum; however, we are unanimous in the belief that we must stop the epidemic of firearm injury and death in the United States. This call does not come from baseless idealists but rather from impassioned students who understand that firearm violence is a public health crisis that desperately requires intervention. We seek to apply the same approach to firearm safety that the medical community has used to successfully mitigate other public health problems, such as motor vehicle accidents and smoking: identifying root causes, conducting population research, and implementing evidence-based changes. As medical students, we rely on our schools' faculty to prepare us to handle our community's health challenges. We see victims of firearm violence in emergency departments, operating rooms, andworst of allthe morgue, but we have received no formal guidance or training on how to address or prevent this epidemic. In addition to doing research, physicians can counsel their patients directly on the topic of firearm safety and storage. This opportunity uniquely positions physicians to intervene on this tragic public health issue. We ask the deans of our medical schools, the developers of our curricula, and all members of the medical community to provide us with the education, knowledge, and counseling skills regarding firearm safety to properly fulfill our duties as health care providers. In the immediate future, this involves implementing curricula dedicated to teaching the practical knowledge and patient counseling skills about firearm safety that have been shown to be effective in preventing firearm violence (2). In the longer term, it requires dedicating appropriate resources to research on firearm safety, an area that remains drastically understudied because of decades of national funding limitations. We call on the medical community to equip us with the tools that we need to live up to the Hippocratic oath that we took on entering this profession. Each of us pledged to prevent disease whenever I can, as prevention is preferable to cure. Prevention is not only in our laneit is our duty.