Doctors Announce Nationwide Stand on September 17 to End America's Firearms Epidemic

STANFORD, Calif., Sept. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- On Monday, September 17 at Stanford Medical Center and leading centers of medicine across the U.S., doctors, nurses, medical students, EMTs, and other healthcare professionals and supporters will stand together to accept the professional challenge of gun violence. At 12:00 p.m. in over 40 locations across the country, medical professionals will hold simultaneous rallies calling for specific measures to treat firearm violence as a public health crisis and epidemic.

This powerful call for action is being led by a team of prominent Stanford physicians and medical students who have banded together with healthcare providers across the U.S. to create SAFE ("Scrubs Addressing the Firearms Epidemic")https://www.standsafe.org/ 
Advisors to SAFE include a nonpartisan range of physicians, three retired U.S. military generals, former ABC news reporter Bob Woodruff and medical students and lawyers who specialize in this field.

Next to victims and their families, there are no greater experts on the harm inflicted by gun violence than the physicians and healthcare workers who try to save lives and repair the damage caused by bullets each day in America.

SAFE Co-founder Dr. Dean Winslow is a physician and Stanford University Professor of Medicine, serving 35 years as a USAF Colonel and flight surgeon.  "In my six deployments as a flight surgeon to Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11, I witnessed firsthand, the devastating effects that assault weapons have on human bodies," says Winslow. "These are weapons designed for the battlefield. Easy access to these same types of weapons in the U.S. has resulted in dozens of horrific mass shootings - and handguns cause the deaths of at least 20 veterans each day by suicide." 

Stanford medical student and SAFE Co-founder, Sarabeth Spitzer adds, "As medical students being trained to protect our patients' physical and mental health, we were struck by the lack of medical education available on such a devastating issue. With each mass shooting covered in the news, we watched, wondering what we could do to prevent such loss of life. While we spent our days in medical school learning how to combat and prevent human suffering through incredible advances in medicine and technology, firearms violence was never discussed. We created SAFE to highlight the need to incorporate teaching on firearm safety and gun violence into the medical education curriculum for medical students."

Students at medical schools across the country from Harvard and Yale to NYU will join Spitzer in standing united on September 17 at 12 p.m. to focus attention on:

• The more active role that doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals are taking in attacking this public health crisis.
• Advocating that firearm safety education be included in every comprehensive health plan for patients.
• Initiatives to develop materials to help physicians and nurses incorporate firearm safety education to keep families healthy.
• The crippling legal limitations on gun violence research by government agencies.

SAFE board member, noted author and physician, Abraham Verghese says about the SAFE mission: "injury to the human body, whether accidental, self-inflicted or otherwise, becomes just as preventable as the small pox and diphtheria that took lives in generations past. As healthcare professionals, it is our duty to protect the lives of our patients in every way we can."

For the complete list of participating medical centers and schools, go to https://www.standsafe.org/chapters

About Standsafe.org:                                                           

Founded at Stanford University in 2018, Standsafe.org is an organization made up of U.S. physicians, nurses, and healthcare professionals dedicated to eliminating the U.S. firearm violence epidemic through research, education, and evidence-based policy. For more information, please visit https://www.standsafe.org

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SOURCE SAFE: Scrubs Addressing the Firearms Epidemic