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Abstract
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Firearm injuries have become an epidemic in the United States. In 2022, more than 48 000 US citizens died from firearm related injuries of all types--unintentional, suicide, and homicide--and in 2020 firearms surpassed motor vehicle accidents as the leading cause of death among US children and adolescents.12 Firearms are also the most fatal method of suicide in the US, with 89.6% of suicide attempts by a firearm resulting in death between 2007 and 2014.3 Additionally, in 2020 the US firearm homicide rate reached 6.1 per 100 000 people--its highest rate in more than 25 years.4 Clearly, firearm related injury is a public health issue, and, as such, healthcare workers have a part to play in its resolution.
With about a third of Americans owning a gun5 and approximately 4.6 million children living in homes with loaded and unlocked guns,6 prevention should start with counseling on safe gun storage. Healthcare consultations are an opportune moment for these conversations, but physicians have not yet normalized the topic of firearms in routine patient encounters. In part, this is because most US medical schools haven't embraced teaching students how to counsel patients on firearm injury prevention, even in specialties such as pediatrics, where gun safety is critical for child safety.
Only 25% of US medical schools covered firearm related injuries in their curricula in the 2020-21 school year.7 This content is usually optional and is rarely incorporated into the required curriculum. A few medical schools are leading the way in changing this. For example, the School of Medicine at University of California San Francisco has implemented a small group session for all first year medical students that allows them to role-play counseling patients on firearm safety.8 Brown University's Warren Alpert Medical School is implementing a four year program that will teach students about firearm epidemiology and safe storage counseling in their pre-clinical years so that they can apply these skills in clerkships during their third and fourth years...
Language: en |