'Do you know how many bullets I pull out of corpses weekly?' - doctors to NRA

[Judi Lynn]

Physician slams organization after it criticized those who want to reduce gun deaths by tweeting ‘stay in your lane’

Vivian Ho in San Francisco
Sat 10 Nov 2018 02.00 EST

Dr Judy Melinek, a San Francisco-based forensic pathologist, saw the headline on her way into work early Friday.

“‘Stay in your lane’, NRA tells doctors who want to reduce gun deaths,” it read. And though she has a personal policy to never tweet when angry, she couldn’t stop herself.

“Do you have any idea how many bullets I pull out of corpses weekly?” she quickly typed. “This isn’t just my lane. It’s my fucking highway.”

“I was just so incensed,” Melinek said later. “I was so angry, thus the foul language. Here I was, going into work for a case that involved a gunshot wound. I had another one earlier this week. And I was just so incensed that anyone would put down doctors who try every single day to try and save people’s lives.”

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/09/nra-doctors-tweet-gun-control-deaths

[dalton99a]

1. Great response

Melinek’s tweet quickly received widespread support from other doctors and forensic pathologists – “This is our interstate,” wrote Dr Darin Wolfe, an Indiana-based pathologist – as well as its share of criticism.

“I’m pretty sure this is exactly what the NRA was talking about,” wrote one Twitter user. “Emotion is not an intelligent or recommended way to drive debate. Sound logic is the only way to go. Your tweet is stewing with emotion. This is why you can’t be allowed to drive policy debates.”

“You are absolutely right,” Melinek responded. “Evidence and research is needed before we make policy decisions. We should be funding research into what can prevent gun violence. Oh, wait a minute. NRA was against that too.”

Melinek said she conducts, on average, one autopsy a week involving a gunshot wound victim. Every single medical conference she’s attended in the past 10 years has had some presentation or discussion about responding to multiple fatality incident involving gun violence, she said.

“We need to do something, and telling doctors to say in their own lane is not the way to do it,” she said. “We’re the ones who have to deal with the consequences. We’re the ones who have to testify in court about the wounds. We’re the ones who have to talk to the family members. It breaks my heart, and it’s just another day in America.”

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. People need to see exactly what bullets do to the human body.

It's nothing like what is shown in a TV show or movie.

There also needs to be serious follow-up of those who survive but are maimed for life.

[Aristus]

6. I don't work in emergency medicine or trauma surgery,

but I have several patients who are gunshot victims, and will live with the results of their wounds for the rest of their lives.

One patient has almost no function in his upper extremities from a GSW to the posterior right shoulder; he was right-hand dominant before the wound. Now, he can barely write his name.

I have another patient who is chronically catheterized, and will urinate into a bag for the rest of his life. He has to deal with frequent, recurrent urinary tract infections.

Each of these patients was wounded by just one round each from a gun.

[Docreed2003]

3. They are truly scared that we medical providers

Will start sharing the true horror of a bullet ripping through a body...

[2naSalit]

4. I think that should start happening now.

I recall seeing photos in several life magazine issues that showed what children with bullet wounds bodies looked like during the Vietnam debacle. i was very young and it shocked me for a long time. In fact, it motivated me to join protests in the streets on many occasions in my own state and even DC before I was 17.

I think that the medical providers should start exposing the lie of the small bleeding hole like you see on the teevee.

And I laud you for your ability to deal with the gore.

[raccoon]

5. I second that emotion. Nt

[Aristus]

7. The NRA needs to stay in its own fucking lane.

Marksmanship and gun safety, right?

That was the original mission of the NRA, wasn't it?

Nothing about gun proliferation, suppression of data on the deadliness of gunshot wounds, nothing about supplying terrorists with weapons, right?