Gun Violence Prevention Task Force

Get Involved!

If you are interested in joining the task force, please email us at amwagunviolencetaskforce@gmail.com.

Follow us on Twitter @AMWAGVTF, or on Facebook as the American Medical Womens Association Gun Violence Prevention Task Force. Share, retweet and Like!

Are you an AMWA chapter leader, or are you interested in putting on an educational event or series of events on gun violence in your institution? AMWA has resources for you! Please email us at amwagunviolencetaskforce@gmail.com, and we would be happy to share our slide decks and literature with you!

• Our Patients, Our Lane: Why Congress Must Fund Gun Violence Research
  Gabriella Rader, medical student members of AMWA’s Gun Violence Prevention Committee, published an op-ed with fellow classmates from the Northwestern University Feinburg School of Medine on the need for gun violence research.
• On August 8, 2019, AMWA issued press release on the need for gun violence prevention following the shootings in El Paso, TX and Dayton, OH
• THIS IS OUR LANE: An Open Letter to the NRA from American Healthcare Professionals
  Sign on to the open letter co-authored by Gun Violence Task Force Drs. Ilana Rosman and Stephanie Bonne
• AMWA Partners with SAFE (Scrubs Addressing the Firearm Epidemic)

Mission Statement

As women physicians at all stages of our medical careers and with a range of specialties and recognizing the significant impact of gun violence on communities throughout the country and the considerable repercussions of gun violence on the medical system, we have created the American Medical Women’s Association Gun Violence Prevention Task Force.  With over 5000 women physician members and a presence in over 100 medical schools throughout the country, AMWA is uniquely positioned to work toward the following missions:

• To create and deliver content for medical student education on gun violence as a public health and medical issue
• To encourage the treatment of gun violence as a public health issue, including support of increased funding for research into gun violence and prevention strategies from both governmental and private sources
• To defend the right of physicians to discuss gun violence with patients and to educate physicians in the appropriate manner in which these discussions may occur
• To uphold the right of medical schools and teaching hospitals to restrict weapons on campus and in sensitive areas.
• To represent the American Medical Women’s Association to National Gun Violence Coalitions who are working on gun violence specifically from the standpoint of public health and medicine

In 2015, AMWA established a gun violence prevention task force to help address this growing problem in the United States. To date, this group has over 60 members.  If you are interested in joining us and helping with Gun Violence Prevention?  Please email us at amwagunviolencetaskforce@gmail.com.  We have committee roles and leadership roles available for anyone who wants to get involved.

Keep up to date on our activity, petitions, and coalition updates.  Bookmark this page, or follow us on social media!

Questions?  Contact Stephanie Bonne or Ilana Rosman at: amwagunviolencetaskforce@gmail.com

Discussion Cases and Guides

E-mail amwagunviolencetaskforce@gmail.com for more information about our resource library of discussion cases, guides, and power point presentations.  Please also feel free to share your resources with the task force.

AMWA Partnership with AFFIRM

The AFFIRM mission is to end the epidemic of gun violence through research, innovation and evidence-based practice. They have the expertise, the workforce, and the collective will of medicine to get it done. In addition to AMWA, AFFIRM has 41,000 letter signatories and ten partner organizations.

Here are 4 things AMWA and our members can do to help NOW:

1. Donate to fund our research. Our first grants were just released, and every dollar enables research that otherwise would not be possible, to change the path of this epidemic.
2. Check out our Facebook and Twitter pages.
3. Sign and share our open letter.
4. Write a perspective piece or commentary for our webpage, to help increase the impact of the #ThisIsOurLane discussion. Let us know if this interests you and we’ll send you our guidelines.

Please share widely, and let AFFIRM know if you would like to be added to their email list so you can stay up to date on their work! For additional information, there are resources on AFFIRM’s webpage.

Related Information:

• Then They Came For Me — Powerful video on Pittsburgh shooting
• Printable Patient brochure on Firearm Safety (Pamphlet for patients on gun safety)
• How to Have a Conversation with Patients about Gun Safety (Pamphlet for providers)
• Doctors For America call for lifting the ban on CDC gun violence research
• Center for American Progress information on Guns And Crime
• American Public Health Association Gun Violence Prevention Resources
• Under the Gun
• Harvard School of Public Health
• Resources on gun violence issues — National Physician’s Alliance
• AMWA Past President Dr. Theresa Rohr-Kirchgraber Pens Letter on Gun Violence (IndyStar, June 5, 2018)
• Gun Violence Prevention in the News — Op-Ed by Dr. Nina Agrawal (AMWA Blog, March 6, 2018)
• AMWA Gun Violence Prevention Task Force Press Release (AMWA Blog, February 21, 2018)

Additional Resources from the National Physicians Alliance:

Report: Politics in the Exam Room: a Growing Threat, co-authored by the National Partnership for Women and Families, the National Physicians Alliance, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Law Center to Protect Gun Violence

Sample media coverage of this report: The Atlantic, Think Progress, Washington Post, Ms. Magazine.

• Coalition to Protect the Patient-Provider Relationship