Physicians Should Play a New Role in Reducing Gun Violence
Julie Rosenbaum
Matthew Ellman
By MATTHEW S. ELLMAN, MD and JULIE R. ROSENBAUM, MD
What if firearm deaths could be reduced by
visits to the doctor? More than 35,000 Americans are killed annually by
gunfire, about 60% of which are from suicide. The remaining deaths are mostly
from accidental injury or homicide. Mass shootings represent only a tiny
fraction of that number.
There’s a lot physicians can do to reduce
these numbers. Typically, medical organizations such as the AMA recommend
counseling patients on firearm safety. But there is another way to use
medical expertise to help reduce harm from firearms: physicians should evaluate
patients interested in purchasing firearms. The idea would be to reduce the
number of guns that get into the hands of people who might be a danger to
themselves or others due to medical or psychiatric conditions. This
proposal has precedents: physicians currently perform comparable standardized
evaluations for licensing when personal or public safety may be at risk, for
example, for commercial truck drivers, airplane pilots, and adults planning to
adopt a child. Similar to these models, a subset of physicians would be
certified to conduct standardized evaluations as a prerequisite for gun
ownership.
As a primary care physicians with decades
of practice experience, we have seen the ravages of gun violence in our
patients too many times. A 50-year-old man shot in the spinal cord 30 years ago
who i...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Medical Practice Physicians Gun Control gun violence Julie Rosenbaum Matthew Ellman Source Type: blogs
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