[Townhall] Over 2,500 medical students and healthcare professionals at over 30 leading medical centers held events on Monday urging the public to treat "gun violence" as a public health crisis, The Mercury News reported.
The events were part of Scrubs Addressing the Firearms Epidemic (SAFE), a non-partisan action co-founded by Stanford’s Professor of Medicine Dr. Dean Winslow, a Republican, and fourth year medical student Sarabeth Spitzer, a Democrat. Winslow is a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and flight surgeon who was deployed six times to Iraq and Afghanistan.
At Stanford, healthcare professionals spoke about the health risk associated with guns, the gun epidemic and trauma care. At the University of California San Francisco, two panels discussed California's firearms laws and recommended ways to talk to patients about firearm access, safety, and risk.
According to Spain, it's difficult for medical professionals to get involved in the gun debate because of the political nature surrounding firearms.
"If this were any other public health problem, we wouldn’t stand for it. But it’s such a hot button political topic that we lose the ability to talk about it," Spain told The Mercury News. "We’ve been a little slow. We’re politically adverse. Our mission is education and research. This is advocacy."
Medical associations and groups have become involved in the gun control debate. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Physicians and the American Medical Association are just a few who have thrown their hat into the arena. |