Fed up with the toll gun injuries take on their patients, physicians from Chicago’s top hospitals took an unusual step late last October. They joined Illinois lawmakers during a news conference to endorse state legislation requiring licensing for gun dealers. “It represents the galvanizing of shared hospital-level advocacy on one of the most important public health issues of our time,” said Matt Davis, MD, director of Academic General Pediatrics at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Others at the event included physicians from the University of Chicago, Rush Medical Center, and the Illinois chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “I attended the news conference because gun violence is a public health emergency affecting the children and families that we care for physically, emotionally, and psychologically,” Sherald Leonard, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at Rush, explained in a statement. Three weeks earlier, the largest mass shooting in US history had claimed at least 58 lives and left more than 500 wounded in Las Vegas. On the first Sunday in November, 26 people were shot to death in a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. These high-profile tragedies garner profuse news coverage, yet they account for a fraction of US gun injuries and deaths. In fact, gun injuries are now the third leading cause of death among children and adolescents nationwide...
Language: en
LA - en SN - 0098-7484 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.2017.18072 ID - ref1 ER -