Tool to help doctors discuss firearm violence with patients may inspire story ideas

Health care professionals are often on the frontlines of the firearm violence epidemic, caring for the thousands of people who are shot each year. They also overwhelmingly agree that preventing firearm injuries is within their abilities.

"As physicians and healers, we are committed to ending firearm violence by advocating for common-sense, evidence-based solutions," said former AMA president Jack Resneck Jr., M.D., at a 2022 organizational meeting.

In 2019, the California Firearm Violence Research Center at UC Davis created the BulletPoints Project, through a California State Assembly bill, to teach "medical and mental health care providers how to reduce the risk of firearm injury in their patients.

This valuable resource, which helps physicians talk about guns with their patients, also offers journalists an avenue for covering how those in the medical field can do their part to prevent firearm violence.

More about the BulletPoints Project

While the majority of clinicians feel they can prevent firearm injuries with their patients, according to the Project website, they say they don't routinely talk with patients about guns because of a lack of education on how to broach the subject. They also said they don't know what they'd do if they learned that a patient at risk had access to a gun, and that the topic is rarely covered in medical and nursing school curriculum.

The BulletPoints Project was created to fill that knowledge gap. The project created content that includes the epidemiology of firearm injury and death, individual and social determinants of risk, the basics of firearms, the risks and benefits of having firearms in the home, best practices for talking with at-risk patients about safety, safe storage counseling and other intervention tools for clinicians.

Their materials and online resources offer continuing education courses, online videos, webinars and lectures, journal club guides and case-based learning modules.

These resources may also inspire many health care stories. For example, they offer clinical scenarios for doctors to use, such as counseling veterans on access to guns and their elevated risk for suicide. They also have a guide for pediatricians talking to parents about preventing unintentional shootings involving children, who are at a high risk for that type of shooting.

When reporting on veteran suicide or unintentional shootings involving children, the role a doctor can play is an important angle.

These are also helpful resources for health care journalists covering how medical professionals can do their part to prevent firearm injuries and deaths and offer clinicians practical ways to help prevent firearm violence among their patients.

"Clinicians can play a crucial role in reducing unintentional firearm injury," the guide reads. "Nonetheless, few providers have conversations with patients about the risks, or provide guidance to families about safer storage. In fact, survey research suggests that fewer than 8% of US gun owners who live with children have ever had a clinician speak with them about firearm safety."

The guide also walks a clinician through talking about safe storage with a parent: keep the gun unloaded, locked up and separate from ammunition, which should also be locked up.