After a recent tweet by the National Rifle Association suggested that medical professionals should “stay in their lane” when it comes to guns, many U.S. doctors responded with messages of their own. Dr. Sonny Saggar, a St. Louis physician, was among those insisting that the issue of gun violence actually falls well within their lane.
“When doctors say, ‘This is our lane, this is my lane,’ they’re basically raising awareness that gun violence is indeed a public health crisis,” Saggar said on St. Louis on the Air.
“If a virus killed 20 kids in five minutes, or if a bacterial strain killed 60 people in 15 minutes – if you’ve got some pathogen randomly attacking schools, churches, nightclubs almost every day of the year – then people would wonder whether doctors had fallen asleep at the wheel.”
Until last December when he started focusing solely on the 24-hour Downtown Urgent Care business he owns, Saggar had worked for many years in hospital emergency departments around the St. Louis region. He grew up in England and also worked in emergency departments there before moving to the U.S.
During his 21 years in American medicine, he has observed many of the bodily and psychological results of gun violence – for those killed and injured, for loved ones and bystanders, and also for colleagues.
“There’s a lot of people who are affected,” Saggar said. “Who’s actually removing the bullets from the spines and from the hearts? Who’s repairing the bowel and the bones from gunshot wounds? Who’s having to deal with the psychological effects? Surgeons, psychiatrists, internists, emergency physicians, OB-GYNs, pediatricians, everyone.”
Saggar urged community members to think about responsible gun ownership and take proactive measures, such as removing guns from a home where children live.
“If you can’t do that, then [practice] safe storage and safety measures like a loading indicator or a child safety lock on the gun,” Saggar said. “These things have actually been proven to help reduce gun accidents.”
He added that he thinks it is appropriate for physicians to ask parents and adults about guns.
“I think it’s no different from asking, ‘Is there a fence around your swimming pool? Do you have car seats for your children? Do you smoke around your children?’” Saggar said.
“If those questions are intrusive, I don’t know what else we can do. We’ve got to ask proactive questions.”
He emphasized his deep concern about American gun culture – something he said he struggles to explain to friends and family abroad.
“When one-third of gun sales require no background checks – for example, at a gun show – it’s basically asking for trouble,” Saggar said. “What does it say about a country where it’s now normal – and I can’t think of any other word – it’s normal [where] it’s just another day to have a shooting in a school?”
Reprinted with permission from news.stlpublicradio.org.
