Abstract
Purpose
Firearm injuries are a major public health crisis; however, providers are not routinely educated on how to discuss this topic with their patients. To address this gap, a firearm safety curriculum was developed for medical students during their surgery clerkship. Perceptions, knowledge, and preparedness for counseling patients was evaluated before and after dissemination.
Methods
All second-year medical students enrolled in the surgery core clerkship from March 2023 to March 2024 were included. The curriculum consists of a 30-min didactic presentation discussing gun violence with techniques to identify and counsel at-risk patients followed by a 30-min, interactive case-based discussion where students simulate counseling strategies. Pre- and post-session surveys included a 5-point Likert scale to evaluate efficacy of the curriculum. Paired student’s
t
test was conducted to compare pre- and post-survey responses.
Results
Of the 249 students, 54.6% % were female, 50.9% were White, and mean age was 25 ± 2 years. While 91.9% of students responded that they had never owned a gun, 37.8% had lived in a home where a gun was present, and 48.2% had fired a gun before. Only 24.7% of students had previously taken a gun-safety course, and 15.4% received training on counseling patients on firearm safety. One hundred thirty three students completed both pre- and post-session surveys for analysis. After the course, students had higher agreement on the importance of physician’s roles and responsibilities in patient education on firearm safety, and students felt more prepared to counsel patients. Knowledge of patient risk factors for firearm injury increased significantly from students being able to identify 1.4 ± 1.1 risk factors correctly on pre-test to identifying 2.6 ± 1.6 risk factors correctly on post-test (
t
(64) = − 5.6,
p
< 0.01).
Conclusion
The firearm safety curriculum is a simple and effective tool that augments students’ knowledge and understanding of gun violence, as well as prepares them to counsel patients on firearm safety. This curriculum can be widely implemented as an important intervention to equip future physicians with the necessary tools to help address the firearm crisis in the United States.