Northwell creates institute for gun violence prevention

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Northwell creates institute for gun violence prevention
Northwell Health President Michael Dowling speaks at the Gun Violence Prevention Forum. (Photo courtesy of Northwell Health)

Northwell Health System announced the creation of an institute to study gun violence prevention on Wednesday.

The Center for Gun Violence Prevention was established by its President and CEO Michael Dowling to “help curtail the nearly 40,000 firearms-related deaths that occur every year in the U.S.”

“I firmly believe that health care leaders have a social responsibility to try to stop the mindless bloodshed caused by firearms-related violence in this country, just as we respond aggressively to health crises like vaping, the flu or the new coronavirus that is causing worldwide panic,” said Dowling, who has called gun violence a major health problem and called on other hospital groups to support legislation to address the problem.

The center will be headed by Dr. Chethan Sathya, a pediatric surgeon and associate trauma medical director at Cohen Children’s Medical Center, whose trauma surgery training at Northwestern Medicine’s Children’s Hospital in Chicago, Ill. involved treating infants with gunshot wounds.

“Our goal is to build a blueprint for how health systems across the nation can reduce gun violence and promote gun safety,” Sathya said. “If we can develop a successful gun violence prevention strategy internally, it will serve as an example for other health systems and industries to follow suit. We want to lead the charge on this and show others that meaningful change is possible and that lives can be saved.”

Northwell’s Deputy Physician-in-Chief Thomas McGinn will assist, as will Dr. Jose Prince, vice chair of surgery at Northwell and director of the Laboratory of Pediatric Injury and Inflammation at the Feinstein Institutes’ Center for Immunology and Inflammation.

Multiple prominent voices on gun violence prevention have agreed to serve on an advisory committee that will guide the new interdisciplinary center, including Dr. Peter Masiakos, founder of Massachusetts General Hospital’s Center for Gun Violence Prevention and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School; Dr. Robert McLean, president of the American College of Physicians and associate clinical professor at Yale Medical School; Dr. Megan Ranney, chief research officer of the American Foundation for Firearm Injury Reduction in Medicine Research; Dr. Mark Rosenberg, former head for the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and former CEO of the Task Force for Global Health; and Daniel Webster, director of Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research and a leader at the Johns Hopkins-Baltimore Collaborative for Violence Reduction.

Dowling, who served as state director of Health, Education and Human Services, has been outspoken on gun violence as a public health crisis. He ran advertisements in The New York Times last summer calling for efforts to combat the problem, held Northwell’s Gun Violence Prevention Forum last fall and wrote an editorial in the August issue of Becker’s Hospital Review on the subject.

“True leadership means having the personal courage to speak out and take the heat, particularly on issues that are affecting the health and wellness of our communities,” Dowling wrote. “If there was a disease that was killing as many people as guns in this country, we would be mobilizing a national response effort. It’s inexcusable for us to remain silent.”

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  1. Here’s how every American can make a REAL difference in the lives of those traumatized by gun violence: Join the National Sing-In and Memorial for Gun Violence Victims on the first, annual Requiem and Remembrance Day, March 8, 2020.
    Post Song-Selfies (for musicians) and Tribute Posts (everyone else) on Twitter. Use #alwayscherished, #neverforgotten, and #requiem&remembranceday to amplify exposure.
    • Create a day of unity and healing through music by “crowd-sourcing” love through song and remembrances.
    • Provide all Americans the means to express their sadness about the toll that gun violence has taken on our families, communities and nation as a whole.
    • Through our collective songs and remembrance posts, pay tribute to those who have been lost, and offer solace, support, and solidarity to the bereaved.
    • Create a new dialogue gun violence that is outside of politics and conflict.
    We warmly embrace all voices, from all walks of life, for love and compassion cross all political, geographic, and cultural boundaries.
    By uniting millions of voices, all on the same day for the same purpose, we can make a REAL difference in the lives of those traumatized by gun violence.
    Add Your Voice on March 8, 2020!

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