Firearm Safety: A Clinical Skills Workshop

Sunday, April 27, 2025

10:45am – 12:15pm HST

Location: Convention Center: 308

CE: 1.5

Leader(s)

Hemal Sampat, MD (he/him/his)

Associate Physician in Medicine and Assistant Pediatrician
Massachusetts General Hospital, United States

Co-Leader(s)

Eric Fleegler, MD MPH (he/him/his)

Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine
MassGeneral Hospital for Children
Needham, Massachusetts, United States
Sandra McKay, MD

Associate Professor
Pediatrics
McGovern Medical School at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
Missouri City, Texas, United States
SC

Sofia Chaudhary, MD (she/her/hers)

Assistant Professor in Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine
Emory University School of Medicine
Decatur, Georgia, United States
Lois Lee, MD, MPH (she/her/hers)

Associate Professor
Emergency Medicine
Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School
Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Disclosure(s):

Hemal N. Sampat, MD: I do not have any relevant financial / non-financial relationships with any proprietary interests.

Eric W. Fleegler, MD MPH: I do not have any relevant financial / non-financial relationships with any proprietary interests.

Sandra McKay, MD: I do not have any relevant financial / non-financial relationships with any proprietary interests.

Sofia Chaudhary, MD: I do not have any relevant financial / non-financial relationships with any proprietary interests.

Lois K. Lee, MD, MPH: SpringerNature (Ongoing) (Products/Services: Intellectual Property including patent beneficiary and royalties); Uptodate (Ongoing) (Products/Services: Intellectual Property including patent beneficiary and royalties)

Workshop Description: Gun violence is a public health crisis in the United States. Despite this, clinicians do not routinely receive training in counseling patients about firearm injury prevention, secure firearm storage, nor other safety measures. As a result, few clinicians incorporate discussions about firearm injury prevention into their clinical care.

In this interactive workshop, clinicians will learn and practice skills to discuss firearm injury prevention with patients and families. First, in an engaging didactic introduction, we will outline the epidemiology of gun violence in the United States, review the resources available to facilitate firearm injury prevention (e.g., gun locks and other storage devices, extreme risk protection order (ERPO) or “red flag” laws, etc.), and provide an overview of how to have trauma-informed, culturally competent conversations about firearm safety. Then, we will demonstrate these skills with a series of interactive case discussions. Participants will first view a pre-recorded video of a patient encounter produced with a standardized patient (actor) in which various aspects of firearm safety are discussed in a well-child visit. Then, that patient encounter will be analyzed in facilitated small group discussions, with key themes reported back to the larger group. The small groups will then discuss and role-play two additional scenarios: 1) a parent arranging a playdate at a home where there may be firearm access; 2) an adolescent with depression being screened for firearm access. This will provide an opportunity for participants to discuss barriers to these conversations and practice these newly acquired skills.

Learning Objectives:

Appraise the epidemiology of gun violence in the United States.
Describe the medical and legal resources that are available to pediatricians to improve firearm safety for their patients.
Conduct culturally competent conversations about firearm safety with their patients and their families.