We pediatricians want lawmakers to pass gun laws that protect Tennessee children | Opinion

Pediatric critical care providers
·4 min read
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To our fellow Tennesseans and our elected leaders:

March 27 began as most Mondays do, with our pediatric critical care team busy managing the details of caring for critically ill children in our hospital. While we made our rounds, the calls came in: there had been a school shooting and we were to prepare for a mass casualty.

We are a group of medical professionals dedicated to providing the best care possible to the area’s sickest children. In the pediatric intensive care unit (ICU), our resilient group of health care providers respond to catastrophic injuries, illness, and death of children on a regular basis. We have been trained neither to shy away from the suffering of families, nor to retreat inward in despair. For better or worse, we are conditioned to put those reactions aside and lean into crisis and suffering, providing healing, comfort and dignity.

Yet the news of The Covenant School shooting — in our community — was unfathomable. Despite personal fear, we knew there was no time to be paralyzed with emotion and quickly mobilized to assist with initial stabilization as we simultaneously prepared ICU rooms and staff for the children.

Those ICU rooms were never used. The children never made it to us, having died on the way to our emergency room. The loss was acutely amplified by our awareness that we did not even have a chance to save Hallie, Evelyn and William. Despite the school being just a few miles away from our hospital, law enforcement acting without hesitation, heroic first responders, and the best-prepared pediatric level one trauma center staff, there was absolutely nothing we could do to help these children.

More: Frontline physicians call for an end to the perpetual cycle of mass shootings | Opinion

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Three steps to protect children from gun violence

As medical professionals, our ability to save lives depends on the community in which we live and practice. When an ICU doctor needs to harness specific skills and knowledge to help a patient, we consult our colleagues for help. Today, we look outside the walls of our hospital to call on our local, state, and national elected officials to support desperately needed legislation to protect our children and loved ones.

We have signed and wholeheartedly support the recent letter by the Tennessee chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (TNAAP) to Gov. Lee, Lt. Gov. McNally, and Speaker Sexton. In this letter, the TNAAP calls for legislators to pass laws that will protect our children from gun violence. These include:

  1. Extreme risk protection orders

  2. Safe storage laws

  3. Background check legislation.

Sarah Neumann, with son Noah, who is a Covenant School student on the Franklin Public Square on Friday, June 2. Neumann spoke at the Gun Violence Awareness Day rally for gun law reform.
Sarah Neumann, with son Noah, who is a Covenant School student on the Franklin Public Square on Friday, June 2. Neumann spoke at the Gun Violence Awareness Day rally for gun law reform.

These represent evidence-based measures supported by Tennessee parents to prevent deaths and injuries from gun violence. As professionals working in the pediatric ICU to care for the most severely sick and injured children, we advocate going one step further and call for a ban on assault-style weapons. We have seen the horrific injuries caused by rapid fire from high-velocity and high-capacity weapons. These weapons of war have no place in our community and the right to own them does not exceed our children’s right to live and attend school free from fear.

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By this time, you have likely heard statements from surgeons and emergency room personnel who waited for patients to arrive, first responders whose ambulances arrived on the scene but went unused, parents who prayed for their children’s survival only to find that they were already gone. The death of any child is a tragedy. The ongoing loss of children’s lives to senseless and preventable gun violence is unforgivable. As pediatric ICU professionals, we stand ready to help any child in need but the reality is that medical intervention after the fact is unlikely to prevent mortality. For this reason, we call on the Tennessee legislature to work with us to protect our children from future shootings.

Pediatric critical care providers in Nashville:

  • Micaela Arseneau, DNP, APRN, CPNP-AC

  • Kristina A. Betters, MD

  • Katharine Boyle, MD

  • Brian Bridges, MD

  • Kelly A.  Craighead, APRN, MSN, CPNP-AC

  • Isaura Diaz, MD

  • Emily A. Fretz, MD

  • Dustin M. Hipp, MD, MBA

  • Jennifer C. King, MD, PharmD

  • Fred S. Lamb, MD, PhD

  • Jennifer C. Laws, MD

  • Andy Liu, MD

  • Alonso Marron, MD

  • Michael R. Miller, MD, PhD

  • Stephanie G. Patterson, MD

  • Megan L. Shea, DO, MPH

  • Sydney Sloan, APRN, MSN, CPNP-AC

  • Laura S. Smallcomb, MD

  • Melissa Smith-Parrish, MD

  • Julie Stark, MD

  • Ryan Stark, MD

  • Ann Sweeney, MD

  • Abhinav Totapally, MD

  • Jessica M. Turnbull, MD, MA

  • Allison J. Weatherly, MD

  • Stacey Williams, CPNP-AC

  • Michael S. Wolf, MD

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Pediatricians to Tennessee lawmakers: Pass gun laws to protect kids