Em Pulse

As emergency physicians, we are no strangers to firearm violence and its consequences. We explored this topic with renowned expert, Dr. Garen Wintemute, in our January 2019 episode, #thisismylane. Most physicians feel strongly that we have a role in gun violence prevention, but many of us aren’t sure what we can do in our daily clinical practice to make a difference. That’s why Psychiatrist Dr. Amy Barnhorst and her colleagues at the California Firearm Violence Research Center at UC Davis developed the BulletPoints Project. BulletPoints is a resource for clinicians and medical educators who are committed to firearm injury prevention.  We’ve covered how to APPROACH patients about gun safety and ASSESS risk, now we learn how to ACT. In the final episode of our series, Dr. Barnhorst explains what we can do as physicians to help mitigate risk. We’ll talk about options, including temporary transfer of firearms to a safe party, psychiatric holds when appropriate, and “red flag” laws that allow for emergent removal