Let ’s share our stories about gun violence

It’s a peculiar kind of civil war we are waging in America. 30,000 of us die each year from gun violence, exceeding the number killed annually on all sides in the Syrian civil war. On October 1, we saw more than 58 people slaughtered and hundreds injured in a carefully planned attack. At a concert. In Las Vegas. For no apparent reason. My professional interest in this problem began during my residency in Detroit 30+ years ago. I vividly remember my first day on the Emergency Surgery rotation. Six of us stood around a gurney in the ER, stocked with 2 IV poles, one for each arm, bundles of laboratory tubes with lab slips pre-completed with orders for routine labs, including type and cross, a form for a checkbox history and physical, and resuscitation equipment at the head of the bed. We each received an assignment. As a family doctor in training, the H&P was my task. A fourth-year medical student was to insert the Foley catheter and two first-year surgery residents would place the IV lines. The second-year resident ruled over respiration and intubation while the chief resident paced between the ER and OR.  “I want the patients in the OR within 10 minutes of arrival,” he commanded. I was still scanning the history and physical form when we heard sirens and received our first patient: a taxi driver shot through the back with an exit wound through the trachea, conveniently used to intubate him.  More than 600 Detroit residents were murdered that year, most of them with...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Policy Primary Care Public Health & Source Type: blogs