Turning Your Passion into Action: Becoming a Physician Advocate

I stand in the hospital room of a little girl who was shot in her own home just two weeks ago. She was drawing in her sketchbook when a group of teenagers drove by her apartment and took aim. She was shot twice in the chest. Her life and her health will forever be altered. I am not part of her care team, but I am there because just hours after their arrival to the hospital her mother declared that she was going to do something, that gun violence must be stopped. She wants to speak out and she wants to give her daughter a voice. She does not want this to happen to other little girls. My colleagues know that I can help this woman by elevating her voice, by telling her daughter’s story. I have found a passion in gun violence prevention advocacy and I fight every day for little girls like this.

For almost 10 years, I studied asthma. I presented lectures. I conducted research. I published papers. It was my thing. In fact, it still is my thing. But one day shortly after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, I was dropping my oldest daughter off at Kindergarten and for the first time, I saw an armed police officer patrolling the drop-off line. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I went home and called my Senators and Representatives. As I was talking to an aide about evidence-based gun safety legislation, I lost it. I started crying. I finished the call and just sat there. I was momentarily frozen, uncertain of what to do next yet compelled to take action. I decided to attend a meeting of a local gun violence prevention group. Maybe this action of going to one meeting would quell the anxiety and fear that was building inside of me. I found my local Moms Demand Action chapter and I went. About halfway through the meeting, the chapter leader began describing their gun safety campaign, Be SMART for kids, and mentioned that they had been trying to make connections with the Children’s Hospital. That is the moment. That is when it clicked. I have a voice that this movement needs. I can help them. And I did.

Gun violence is the second leading cause of death in children.¹ Gun violence is a public health epidemic. Every day in America, approximately 100 people are shot and killed.² The rate of firearm deaths among children and teens in the United States is 36.5 times higher than that of 12 other high-income countries.¹ We know that states with stricter gun laws have lower rates of child firearm mortality.³ We also know that safe gun storage practices (storing guns locked, unloaded, and separate from ammunition) reduce the risk of suicide and firearm injuries,⁴ yet 4.6 million American children live in a home with a loaded, unlocked firearm.⁵ Promoting safe gun storage practices and advocating for common sense gun safety legislation are two effective ways to address this crisis.

Gun violence prevention is my passion, but it might not be yours. Regardless of your passion, the blueprint for becoming a physician advocate is the same.