Missing Targets: The Ethical Necessity of Firearm Injury Prevention Education

Abstract

A modern version of the Hippocratic Oath instructs physicians that, “prevention is preferable to cure.” As healthcare providers, physicians promote healthy behaviors to prevent social issues from becoming health issues. Firearm violence is a social issue that has led to significant morbidity and mortality making firearm related-injuries and deaths a major health crisis of our time. If physicians have a role as credible messengers and advocates for firearm injury prevention, the educational institutions that form them must have a role as well. Unfortunately, firearm injury prevention education is rare in undergraduate medical education curricula. This poses an ethical dilemma. Undergraduate medical education without firearm injury prevention education misses the opportunity to equip trainees to discuss firearm violence as a health issue. As a result, physicians’ agency to advocate, educate patients, and thus fulfill ethical obligations may be limited. In this paper, physician codes of ethics are briefly presented. A case study of educational inquiry for medical students regarding firearm injury epidemiology, violence as a public health issue, the role of physicians in firearm policy, as well as clinical bedside skills related to firearm safety and injury is described. A case for firearm injury prevention education in undergraduate medical education curricula is made.