As a pediatrician, here's why I fight for meaningful changes to firearms laws | Opinion

I’ve always wanted to be a pediatrician — children bring me immense joy

and hope. When I became a pediatrician, I was trained for treating sick kids with illnesses like diabetes, asthma, and pneumonia. I was not, however, prepared to treat kids with gunshot wounds.

When I saw my first pediatric patient enter the emergency department with a gunshot wound, it hit me like a ton of bricks.

There are numbers and data to back up this insurmountable pain, but it’s a different bone-chilling feeling to lay a stethoscope on a child who was just playing video games when a stray bullet perforated their perfectly young, healthy body and completely altered their life forever.

I remember every single patient during my residency that came in with a firearm wound because they are each unique and heartbreaking. I see their faces and remember their stories, even now.

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Gun violence is a public health crisis

This past spring, three children and three adults were shot and killed at The Covenant School in Nashville, in the community I live and work. That was the most challenging day of my career.

It began like any other but ended full of sirens, tears, and countless texts from parents, friends, and families across our community. I saw the emotional breakdown of my colleagues in a way I had never before. But I also witnessed this turmoil beginning to churn into action.

It became abundantly clear that gun violence was a public health crisis when I was constantly treating kids of all ages with firearm injuries in the hospital. But when guns became the No. 1 killer of children and teens in the United States and in Tennessee, I wanted to do more as a pediatrician to help my patients.

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I only have so many tools as a doctor

It’s a privilege to be a physician, but it can also be infuriating. I’m trained to care for children who cannot avoid illness, to treat wounds after they’ve occurred, but have no tools to prevent them from happening at all – and knowing that gun violence is completely preventable makes my job that much harder.

I have numerous tools at my disposal to treat a child with pneumonia and the vast majority of those kids get better. But when kids come in with firearm injuries, oftentimes I can’t do anything. I don’t have the tools to heal a young child when bullets permanently alter their life in a matter of milliseconds, whether they are physically wounded, have witnessed an act of gun violence, or are living in fear of the next shooting. All of this takes a toll on a child’s ability to grow, develop and thrive.

A physician’s tools can only go so far, but lawmakers have tools at their disposal to prevent a child from needing my help in the first place. They have the tools and the power to pass life-saving legislation.

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Lawmakers need to listen to firearms victims

Starting August 21, Tennessee lawmakers will enter their special session on public safety. We had high hopes that Governor Lee understood the policies necessary to allow us to feel safe in this state when he called the special session, but his proclamation falls immensely short.We all must continue to use our voices, and demand our lawmakers do the right thing — they must take as much action is possible under the framework of this special session.”

To those lawmakers — who are not in the exam room when we have to tell children a bullet will prohibit them from seeing or walking for the rest of their life — I ask you: put yourselves in our shoes. Listen to patient stories. Hear the recommendations of your physicians. Use the unique tools that we, as constituents, have given you. Put all of your power and ulterior motives aside because, at the end of the day, these are our children.

At the statehouse in the week following the shooting at the Covenant School, as I watched students courageously speak and call out lawmakers for inaction on gun violence, I broke down into tears. It shouldn’t be their job to protect themselves from this pervasive public health crisis. It is the adults’ job. It’s my job. It is our lawmakers’ job.

I often get asked if I’m tired of the work I do for gun safety. What I am tired of is lawmaker inaction while gun violence continues to rip our communities apart. But I won’t rest until kids stop coming to our hospitals with gunshot wounds and their long-lasting consequences, and our lawmakers shouldn’t either.

Kelsey Gastineau, MD, MPH is a Moms Demand Action volunteer and board-certified pediatrician based in Nashville

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: As a pediatrician, here's why I fight for changes to firearms laws