Skip to main content

Should Physicians Treat Gun Violence as a Public Health Threat?

The recent mass shooting in Las Vegas was the largest in modern US history, with 58 people dead and more than 500 injured. This horrific event has once again highlighted gun violence and ignited a debate about whether physicians should wade into the national discussion on gun control.
On the one hand, a group of editors, publishing in the Annals of Internal Medicine, JAMA, the New England Journal of Medicine, and PLOS Medicine, shared a list of ways in which healthcare professionals can use their skills and voices to address gun violence as a public health threat.   
On the other hand, a suggestion in a recent Medscape essay suggesting that physicians should not own guns drew more than 300 hostile comments from Medscape readers, many of them angrily stressing that gun ownership is a Second Amendment right.

Question 1 of 5

Do you believe gun violence is a public health threat?

Question 2 of 5

Have you ever discussed gun safety with your patients?

Question 3 of 5

Do you think physicians have a responsibility to discuss gun safety with their patients?

Question 4 of 5

How prepared are you to discuss gun safety with patients?

Question 5 of 5

Do you own any guns?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Contact Precautions May Have Unintended Consequences

Contact precautions, including gloves, gowns, and isolated rooms, have helped stem the transmission of hospital pathogens but have also had some negative consequences, according to findings from a new study. Healthcare worker (HCWs) visited patients on contact precautions less frequently than other patients and spent less time with those patients when they did visit, report Daniel J. Morgan, MD, from the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the Veterans Affairs (VA) Maryland Health Care System, Baltimore, and colleagues. Moreover, patients on contact precautions also received fewer outside visitors. "Less contact with HCWs suggests that other unintended consequences of contact precautions still exist," Dr. Morgan and coauthors write. "The resulting decrease in HCW contact may lead to increased adverse events and a lower quality of patient care due to less consistent patient monitoring and poorer adherence to standard adverse event prevention methods (such...
Post a Comment
Read more

Obama Renominates Tavenner to Be CMS Chief

President Barack Obama yesterday renominated Marilyn Tavenner, the acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), to serve in that post without the caveat of "acting" attached to it. If the Senate approves her nomination, Tavenner will be the first confirmed, full-fledged CMS administrator since Mark McClellan, MD, PhD, stepped down from that position in October 2006, during the George W. Bush administration. Dr. McClellan's successors either were acting administrators or, in the case of Donald Berwick, MD, who was Tavenner's immediate predecessor, a recess appointment. As illustrated by Dr. Berwick's  CMS history , Senate confirmation can be tough to get when one party has enough votes to filibuster and otherwise stymie a nomination by an opposing party's president. That was the case when Obama nominated Dr. Berwick, whom Senate Republicans portrayed as an advocate of healthcare rationing, a characterization denied by t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Secondary Prevention: Clinical Approaches to Managing the Higher-Risk Patient with Heart Disease

INCIDENCE/PREVALENCE/BURDENS ASSOCIATED WITH CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE (CVD) The prevention of an initial and recurrent cardiovascular event and other complications, such as diabetes and kidney failure [also known as end-stage renal disease (ESRD) or chronic kidney disease (CKD) stage 5] is an important goal in patients with a history of CVD. Each year, approximately 185,000 Americans suffer a recurrent stroke, approximately 470,000 will have a recurrent coronary attack, and an estimated 325,000 will suffer a recurrent myocardial infarction. [1]  Secondary prevention strategies offer the opportunity to prevent further complications and improve outcomes by early detection and management of common comorbidities. The burden on public health and the costs associated with chronic illnesses such as CVD, CKD, and diabetes remain high. An estimated 82.6 million American adults (1 in 3) have 1 or more types of CVD. [1]  Heart failure is the fastest-growing clinical cardiac disease ...
Post a Comment
Read more